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.

>>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.