我家有五口人 - tone pronunciation? There are three 3rd tones in a row (yǒu wǔ kǒu) in 我家有五口人. I'm wondering if I'm saying it correctly? Please listen to my voice in the attached recording. I'd be very grateful for any feedback about the sandhi rules in this case. What I'm attempting to say is: 有 - half 3rd tone 五 - tone 2 has become tone 3 because it is in between two other tone-3 words. 口 - half 3rd tone

Finding my Chinese name My first name is Matheson, and I'm trying to find a good Chinese name that sounds similar. 'Matheson' as a first name is very, very rare. 'Matheson' is quite a common last name in Scotland and England, however, so I went to Wikipedia to look for famous people with the last name 'Matheson' to see how it was written in Chinese. I was looking at the Chinese translation of the Wikipedia page about Sir James Matheson, and his name was written as 马地臣. Would that be good for me to use as a Chinese FIRST name? Does the character for ‘horse’ in a name sound powerful (in a good way?), or really stupid?! :-) In English, my name is pronounced as two syllables, NOT as three. I've attached a recording of me saying my name. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, it's: /ˈmæθ.sən/ Given that there's no 'th' sound [θ] in Chinese, the closest equivalent would be [s] (I would like to avoid [t]). Also, [æ] sounds closer to 'e' than to 'a'. So, 'Messen' (which means 'measure' in German) sounds very similar to what I'd like my name to sound like in Chinese. You can hear the German word being pronounced here: http://www.forvo.com/word/messen/#de Which characters would capture the sound of 'Messen'? (Or is it perhaps a bad idea to try to copy the sound? Would it be wiser to create something completely original based on meaning?) Any suggestions? 谢谢

我想访问中国 我哥哥也想学普通话。 (Is it "我哥哥" or "我的哥哥"?) 一天, 我会帮助他, 但首先, 我必须学会自己！ 对吗？ :-) 明年我要在中国去。我想访问北京和上海。 在英国, 多人说中国很美, 我也想看。伦敦是很好的方。 我喜欢住在这里。我有一个日本的朋友, 但我没有朋友从中国。 尚未！(I'm trying to say "not yet") 谢谢您帮我学中文!

我的介绍... 我叫Matheson。我是作曲家。我想学中文。我知五百汉字。 每天我在中文一本书看﹐可是我不会懂太好! 要是说得快我就听不懂。 谢谢你的帮助。

أَوَل مُحَوِلَتِي هِذَا أَوَل مُحَوِلَتِي أَنْ أَكْتُبُ شَيْء فِي أَللُغَةِ أَلعَرَبِيَّةِ فِي إِيتَالْكِي لَقَدْ كَتَبْتُ كُلّ أَاحُرُوفَ مَعَ حَرَكَاتِ وَلاَكِنْ أَلآنْ أَحْتَاجُ أَاتَّصْحِيحَاتَ :-)