Sorry for taking so long to respond to this one, you probably won’t even check this post at this point. Partially I was embarrassed that you criticized my tones (though I think you had it more rightly in your first post. I think my “一” (yi1) was more clearly a first tone when I said it slowly. When I said it quickly, the tone changed.) The second reason I took my time in responding was that I wanted to make sure I got my response right.

Technically, here “一” should be second tone because it precedes “遍” which is fourth tone. “一” normally is said with a first tone, but when it comes before a fourth tone, it is changed to second tone. When it precedes any other tone, it becomes a fourth tone. There are, however, many exceptions to this rule (like when saying dates or years or names.) I felt it was best not to introduce this so early on in the course. In the course we will continue to treat “一” as a first tone. You may be right about me messing up the tone. Maybe I was accidentally changing it to a second tone. Unfortunately, I am still a 老外.

For all you beginners out there, feel free to ignore this rule for now, it won’t effect your speech much at all. But if anyone wants me to spell the rule out more clearly, along with all the exceptions, just put up a post and I will do that.

And maxie, thanks. You are easily the most active person on the site. Thanks for showing your interest and taking your time.

Michael

I think you’ve got the tone wrong on 一 when you say it quickly. You’ve got a 3rd tone instead of 1st. I guess the two 1st tones of 说 and 一 are a bit tricky. It’s a bit hard to get two flat tones; it’s a bit like singing.

It sounds perfect when you say it slowly though.