I decided to put together a small training for those Chinese learners like me, who are still insecure, when it comes to the pronunciation of the 4 main tones of the standard Mandarin language (the 5th is neutral). Most common Chinese words consist of 2 syllables, which are always written with two Han characters. To get all the possible tonal combinations, one gets 16 different groups. But because of the so called tone sandhi, two 3rd tones in a row make the first syllable become 2nd tone, for example: xiǎng + xiǎng turns into xiángxiǎng. That's why we have 15 different groups, which I have listed below with 5 examples for each. My wife has pronounced them for us, all we need to do is listen to it over and over again. To learn the basics, as well as some additional observations about Chinese tones, check an excellent article at Sinosplice.
I hope that this was useful to you. I will post more articles related to pronunciation of standard Chinese, because it's one of the main obstacles Chinese learners face. Share your thoughts below. Photo above: Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai.
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