kids song tones

[kudra]

Here is a song my kid and I learned in her Chinese class. Since we sing it, I am not sure about some of the tone sandi if it were spoken.

火车快跑， 火车快跑

跑过高山， 越过小溪

不知跑了几百里。

快到家里，快到家里

妈妈看见好欢喜。

specifically, what would the spoken tones be for "几百里"?

Thanks.

[Quest]

223

[stBLCU]

214+(214+214) becomes to 35+(21+214)

[XiaoXi]

Shouldn't that be 323?

[HashiriKata]

Shouldn't that be 323?

Conceivable, but would sound very strange.

[XiaoXi]

Isn't that how it works with 3rd tones spoken consecutively? Can someone explain how it works then? As is my understanding 33 becomes 23, 333 becomes 323 and 3333 becomes 2323.

[HashiriKata]

Simply stated, if you've got a string of 33333, then turn them all into 2nd tone except the last one, resulting in a continuous string of 22223. There's one important thing to remember though: if for some reason in your speech you break the string into 2 pieces (eg., you hesitate or just want to take a breath in the middle), such as 333 & 33; then regards these as 2 separate strings and they thus become: 223 & 23.

PS: Long strings of words can have natural breaks within them due to the words organise themselves into logical units, and thus can provide natural points for breaks.

[XiaoXi]

Ok thanks a lot, that's very helpful.