how about the third tones in this statement?

ni3 xuan3 na3 ben3 shu1?

你选哪本书？

how would the rule apply in that case?

谢谢 Xiao HU " is that little tiger? = club"

我只有五十元的

wo3 zhi3 you3 wu3 shi2 yuan2 de

wo2 zhi3 you2 wu3

@Echo - are you saying that tone sandhi does not apply across verb-complement boundary (you3 wu3) and may or may not apply across subject-verb phrase boundary (wo3 or wo2)?

@Echo,

What a bother, this is in opposition to what I'd learned from my professor. He was very strict with his students, he'd always say, "all third tones in succession must change except the last one." According to his teaching, the tonal change has nothing to do with whether or not the surrounding characters are part of the same word, nor does it have anything to do with the word/phrase structure or instrinsic meanings of the words. He maintained that, tone sandhi only has to do with the convenience of making the tones in a phrase easier and more convenient to say.

So we repeatedly practiced, and strictly adhered to the, "all successive third tones except the last must change to second tone" golden rule of tone sandhi.

So, according to his system of tone sandhi, the following phrase:

wo3 you3 wu3 ben3 hen3 hao3 de shu1

Should read like this:

wo2 you2 wu2 ben2 hen2 hao3 de shu1.（我有五本很好的书）

Another example:

wo3 wu2 fa3 ba3 si3 ban3 de ren2 dang4 peng2 you.

（我无法把死板的人当朋友）

Should be read as:

wo3 wu2 fa2 ba2 si2 ban3 de ren2 dang4 peng2 you.

Only after readdressing this question by listening to Chinese people speak did I come to the conclusion that, in natural colloquial speech, Chinese people have the habit of changing every OTHER third tone to second tone.

So the above example could also have the alternate reading of,

wo3 wu2 fa2 ba3 si2 ban3 de ren2 dang4 peng2 you.

Recently, my so called, "pronunciation expert" had this to say about my changes of third tone, “有变调的问题，比如，三声的变调在语流中一些变化没有处理好。”

我已经学了这么多年的中文了，而变调这个问题还是没有处理好，哎！好郁闷的我。。。

@Pefferie,

Perhaps you're right, a follow up lesson might be in order being that tone sandhi is fundamental stuff. I think, however, perhaps the overriding factor here is there is a difference between the theoretical tone sandhi and the tone sandhi in real life?

Or perhaps it's my fundamental inability to grasp basic concepts...

:(

@craigrut,

Hi Craigrut. You are right, ”保险箱“的发音是bǎoxiǎnxiāng.

保险柜 bǎoxiǎnguì is another way to say 保险箱。

In China, some people would like to use 保险箱, while some others prefer保险柜.

Also, when we discribe very big 保险箱, we prefer to use 保险柜。

Here you may find the difference:

保 险 箱

keep safty box

保 险 柜

keep safty cabinet

Hope this helpful.O(∩_∩)O~

@Craigrut,

我看你的留言就不得不问，你欠Gail老师是哪种苹果？难道是吃的那种苹果还是乔布斯设计的那种呢？

@Gail天堂的声音，好久没见！很高兴又见到你!

@craigrut,

哈哈，不得不问的意思是 "have to ask"。

Too bad 不是乔布斯的苹果。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com