#1. When to Pronounce the Tone changes of the 3rd Tone?

If you have studied Chinese for a while, you might have heard about the
importance and difficulties in pronouncing the 3rd tone.

The thing is, most people can pronounce the 3rd tone right after some
practice.

So pronouncing the 3rd tone is not really a problem.

Always pronouncing the FULL 3rd tone is the mistake that a lot of
people make.

The full 3rd tone, aka the original 3rd tone, is a tone that first drops from
2 in pitch to 1 then rises up to 3 in pitch, 2-1-3.

However, the full 3rd tone is only used in very few situations:

• When a 3rd tone character is at the end of a sentence.

Example: 她喜欢你(nǐ)。

• When a 3rd tone character is used by itself.

Example: 好(hǎo)。

So the full 3rd tone that drops and rises is only used in those situations.
In most cases, the 3rd tone is pronounced with a change of tone.

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• When a 3rd Tone character is followed by a non-3rd tone
character

The most commonly used pronunciation of the 3rd tone is a low-

dropping tone with the pitch drops from 2 to 1. This tone change is
used when a 3rd tone character is followed by a non-3rd tone character.

So when you make this sound, you only say the first half of a full 3rd
tone, which drops from 2 to 1 in pitch.

In this word 好吃(hǎochī)，the 3rd tone character

For Example
好(hǎo) is followed by a first tone character 吃(chī), so
the pronunciation of 好(hǎo) changes into a low
dropping 21 tone instead of a full 3rd tone.

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• When a 3rd Tone character is followed by another 3rd tone
character

When a 3rd tone character is followed by another 3rd tone character,

the first character changes into a mid-rising tone with the pitch rises
from 3 to 5.

For Example In this word 你好(nǐhǎo)，the 3rd tone character 你(nǐ)

is followed by another 3rd tone character, so it has a
changed 3rd tone of 3 to 5 in pitch.

So, what tone do you think the character 好(hǎo) has in this word?

好(hǎo) has a full 3rd tone in this case because there is no other
character after it.

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 Summary

So, the actual pronunciation of 3rd tone characters depends on the

tone of the character after it.

• If there is no character after it, the 3rd tone character has a full 3rd
tone,

and if there are characters following it.

• If there are characters following it, and the following character doesn't
have the 3rd tone, the 3rd tone character has a low-dropping 2 to 1
tone.

• If the following character also has the 3rd tone, then the first 3rd tone
character has a mid-rising 3 to 5 tone. The tone change of the second
3rd tone character depends on the tone after character after it.

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