"As we keep practicing the retroflex tongue position for SHI, it’s worth taking a closer look at how the third most common character in Chinese functions. Be careful, it’s easy to use incorrectly.
Here’s the most basic usage the correct way: Connecting nouns is the same way we use “is, are or am” in English. If you have the noun “she” (她) and “your mother” (你的妈妈), you can connect them with 是 to say “she is your mother” 她是你的妈妈 tā shì nǐde māma.
Remember that input is more important than output, so when you see 是 used in correct Chinese sentences, *notice* the two nouns on either side. There are indeed other uses of 是, but this Noun + 是 + Noun is by far the most common. No need to bite off more than you can chew at this point, so keep it there for now.
What Tone?
Your dictionary APP and textbooks will pretty much always label 是 as being pronounced shì, and many times it is, but consider this line of thinking:
1. 是 is the third most common character.
2. Chinese people say it all the time.
3. People like to speak efficiently
4. It is way faster to say 5th tone than 4th tone
It follows that 是, being so frequently used, will often change to 5th tone. This is an example of Tone Sandhi, but it is NOT a tone sandhi “rule”. It is a naturally occurring tone sandhi in speech, but it doesn’t happen 100% of the time. In fact, sometimes people will emphasize the 4th tone of 是 in order to change the intonation of the sentence. “She *IS* your mother!”. "
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