Mandarin 3rd Tone

Any students or speakers here who can weigh in on this?

I've heard in several recordings native or presumably native speakers pronouncing third tones with kind of a skip in the middle—it comes out almost disyllabic—when pronounced fully at the end of an utterance, and I would like to know what is up with that. Not sure I've ever heard a male speaker do it.

I think the recordings can be quite extenuated.  It's not really disyllabic, and especially not so in actual speech.  Listen to how they pronounce in movies- it's more important to know how to pronounce it in a sentence than alone.

Do note that the 3rd tone changes depending on the tones around it.

>>2
I'm talking about recordings of actual speech. It will sound almost like "he1 nai3 a". Maybe that's what I'm hearing and the last word just didn't make it into the transcription.

>>4
IMO this is over-exaggeration to stress the tones.  Chinese people don't talk like that.

However, it might do you some good to just parrot what you hear until you're more comfortable with the language.

>>5
The clip partway down this page is the first time I heard it. Clearly a Chinese person talking like that. I figured maybe it was a little kid thing, but I think I've heard it from adults a couple of times too although I don't recall where.

http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2008/05/yuem%C7%94-u-recordings-from-the-classroom/

I guess it's probably not significant, but I did find it strange to be hearing this "extra syllable" that showed not in the transcription.