Word of the day › Chinese

Chinese · Day 10 · Tone Sandhi Patterns

你好

nǐ hǎoPinyin

hello / hi

phrase (greeting)

The standard everyday greeting in Mandarin. Composed of two underlying third tones (3+3), the first syllable '你' undergoes mandatory tone sandhi, shifting to a spoken second tone (nǐ -> ní) in natural speech.

In a sentence

今天一早去物业大厅办理退租点交,在大门口遇到保安,大伙热情地打了声招呼说你好。

Jīntiān yīzǎo qù wùyè dàtīng bànlǐ tuìzū diǎnjiāo, zài dàménkǒu yùdào bǎoān, dàhuǒ rèqíng de dǎ le shēng zhāohū shuō nǐ hǎo.

Early this morning I went to the property lobby to handle the move-out handover, ran into the security guard at the main gate, and everyone warmly greeted him saying hello.