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Pinyin Rule - Tone Sandhi

You've just learned your first word in Chinese, 你好 (nǐ hǎo). You may have noticed that it sounds like ní hǎo. Why?

Both 你 (nǐ) and 好 (hǎo) are written in the third tone (ˇ). But when you say them together, you don't say two third tones. That's hard to pronounce. So Chinese has a rule called:

Tone Sandhi Rule: 3rd Tone + 3rd Tone → 2nd Tone + 3rd Tone

When two third-tone syllables appear together, the first syllable becomes second tone (ˊ) and the second syllable stays third tone (ˇ). You write the original tones, but say them differently.

Here are some more examples of the Tone Sandhi rule in action:

Word	Meaning	Pinyin	Pronounced
美好	beautiful	měi hǎo	méi hǎo
想法	idea	xiǎng fǎ	xiáng fǎ
很好	very good	hěn hǎo	hén hǎo
手表	watch	shǒu biǎo	shóu biǎo
所以	so	suǒ yǐ	suó yǐ
可以	can	kě yǐ	ké yǐ

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I've read the article about the Tone Sandhi rule.