Tone Lesson 9 – Chinese Tone Change Rule: Half 3rd Tone (2)

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CHINESE THIRD TONE: PRONUNCIATION 3 - HALF THIRD TONE

There are three ways to pronounce the Chinese Pinyin Third Tone:

Today we will practice more about the Half Third Tone, so we can speak more comfortably and naturally with this Mandarin Tones change rule.

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Original Full Third Tone VS. Half Third Tone

We already know that for 2-syllable words, when the Third Tone is the last syllable, we pronounce it as the Full Third Tone. And when it's the first syllable, there are two situations: (1) if syllable 2 is the Third Tone, the first Third Tone changes into the Second Tone; (2) if syllable 2 is the First, the Second or the Fourth Tone, the first Third Tones is pronounced as a Half Third Tone.

So when we have a 3-syllable word. With the Tones like below, the syllable marked in red and underlined is pronounced as Half Third Tone.

TONE COMBINATION 3rd + 1st +3rd 3rd + 2nd +3rd 3rd + 4th +3rd
EXAMPLE nǎ gēn nǎ zǒu méi zǒu hǎo bù hǎo
TONE CHANGE Half 3rd + 1st + Full 3rd Half 3rd + 2nd + Full 3rd Half 3rd + 4th + Full 3rd

Mandarin Pinyin Third Tone Pronunciation Drills

The Half Third Tone syllable will be marked in red and underlined as shown in the "TONE CHANGE" column. All other Tones do not change and are pronounced in the original way.

HALF THIRD TONE + FIRST TONE + FULL THIRD TONE

TONE GROUPS
PĪNYĪN 汉字 TONE CHANGE (ǎ)
lǎo shī zǎo 老师早 lǎo shī zǎo
shǒu jī lǐ  手机里 shǒu jī lǐ
zǔ zhī hǎo 组织好  zǔ zhī hǎo

HALF THIRD TONE + SECOND TONE + FULL THIRD TONE

TONE GROUPS
PĪNYĪN 汉字 TONE CHANGE (ǎ)
kě néng yǒu 可能有 kě néng yǒu
nǐ bié xiě  你别写 nǐ bié xiě
jiǎn chá zǔ 检查组  jiǎn chá zǔ

HALF THIRD TONE + FOURTH TONE + FULL THIRD TONE

TONE GROUPS
PINYIN 汉字 TONE CHANGE (ǎ)
pǎo bù liǎo 跑不了 pǎo bù liǎo
tǐ yù guǎn 体育馆 tǐ yù guǎn
zuǒ yòu shǒu 左右手 zuǒ yòu shǒu
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9 Comments

  • I don’t know if you still read these but you guys make me feel like Chinese is accessible to learn when it felt so daunting to start. I hope to become at least partially able to converse in Chinese and I appreciate how well done these feel.

    • Thank you so much for your comment and words of encouragement. We’re so glad you enjoy the lessons! As long as you keep up the good work we know you’ll be conversing in Chinese in no time!

  • Greetings from a singing teacher from Germany! For me there’re two ways of identifying the half third tone:

    1. by pitch: it drops to a rather deep pitch level
    2. by sound: you can hear a slight vocal fry

    Maybe that helps 😉

  • this is so hard for me, I cannot tell which is the half third tone , and I also can’t recognise the 2nd and 4th tone. this is a lesson I have to practice a lot more

  • I was doing good up until this point. It’s like I cant recognize the half third tone much at all. I read it helps thinking of it as low and flat even though it does fall. Is that true?

  • I can’t seem to recognise 1/2 third tone at all. I did OK on the other quiz’s but I can’t pass this one. Should I do the pinyin drills before this course?
    Thanks

    • What helped me:

      1. Repeat it as faithfully as possible. hearing yourself saying it makes it more obvious.
      2. Look for a single low dip.

      When I repeated it as close as possible, I could feel my voice physically dipping. Hope that helps. 🙂

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