Tone changes for multiple consecutive third tones

Also known as: tone sandhi and 变调规则 (biàndiào guīzé).

The smart students always ask, "OK, so what happens when there are a bunch of 3rd tones in a row?" This is an excellent question!

In theory, all third tones would become second tone except for the very last one. In practice, such a "string" of third tones doesn't usually go beyond three in a row. This is because in natural speech multiple third tones in a row will usually broken up by pauses. In this case, the last word/character in each "group" will be pronounced as a third tone.

Examples

So, in theory, it would go like this:

• 3-3-3-3-3-3 → 2-2-2-2-2-3

In practice, it usually goes something like this:

• 3-3-3-3-3-3 → 2-2-3, 2-2-3

Sources and further reading

• Wikipedia: Tone sandhi: Mandarin Chinese

B1 pronunciation points