Two third tones in a row is usually pronounced as a second tone word followed by a third tone word. So though hǎo （好） is third tone in this context, it is actually pronounced as a second tone word.
I would add onto roflcopterlol’s answer below that to take it even further, 好久不见 would actually be correct as hao2 jiu3 bu5 jian4, as the 不 changes to a neutral tone in this construct. It depends on the system you use whether “correct” means showing the accurate tone for each individual character or the accurate tone for the character in a construct. For example, “你好” is composed of ni3 and hao3 but definitely spoken “ni2 hao3” and most pinyin of it will be “ni2 hao3.”
I don’t use these memrise-made courses personally but I would highly suggest learning how tones morph when strung together. If this course isn’t dealing with that make sure it doesn’t mess with your foundation. The changing tones are actually official, not just a colloquial thing (though there are colloquial changes in pronunciation in Chinese as well depending on region and depending on just “neutralizing” or making tones very subtle once there’s a good understand of when you can do so). Since your wife is from China originally, she probably didn’t grow up relying on pinyin and these subtle changes are just second nature to her. Just like how I didn’t consciously realize until reading about different accents that when I say a word like “matter”, the “tt” sound changes to a “d”. If you ask her to speak 好久不见, i’m sure you won’t hear her 好 dipping down like a third tone. Try saying two third tones together, you’ll be able to tell that they aren’t flowing correctly. When spoken at a normal speed, what you’ll often hear in different degrees from natives is a 你 with a half-assed 2nd tone and a 好 with a half-assed third tone.
If your goal is to be able to speak rather than just read, definitely, definitely drill the crap out of tones and their changes in multi-character words and longer sentences. Also look at particular rules of characters like “不” and “一”. 不 for instance changes to a second tone when directly preceding a fourth tone. When someone says not not correct (不对) or no it isn’t (不是), you will not hear an abrupt bu4 dui4/bu4 shi4, but instead an elongated boooooo shi, boooooo dui using that fourth to second tone change.
Do you have a reference to it (it’s okay even if it’s in Chinese), I would very much like to read up on it. Back when I was in school, we were just told that those were just speaking habits, and didn’t really pay much attention to the nuances.
Sure, I have come across it multiple times in books I’ve used but not exactly sure which ones. I looked it up on Wikipedia and the change in language tonal rules is called Tone sandhi. Check it out:
In the memrise official Chinese courses, we have tried to write the pinyin to reflect how they are pronounced in real life conversations. For the item 好久不见 “háojǐu bújiàn”, the individual characters, when pronounced separately, are “hǎo jǐu bù jìan”, but nobody would say this when the words are said together in natural speech. Therefore, it could be confusing to learn one thing and to use another in real life.
There are generally four tones plus one neutral tone in Chinese:
1 level tone (or flat tone) ā
2 rising tone á
3 falling-rising tone ǎ
4 falling tone à
When a third tone occurs before another third tone, it is pronounced as a second (rising) tone; when a third tone occurs before any other tone, it is pronounced as a low tone (often called a “half third tone”).
Most Chinese speakers make these changes when speaking naturally without being aware of what they are doing. This is the same as how most English speakers would say that the word “a” is pronounced like the letter “A” (eh-ee), but when it is used in natural speech it sounds more like “uh”. For example, “This is a table” would sound awkward or overenunciated if pronounced as “This is ‘A’ table”.
I hope this helps 
Xia
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Thanks guys.
Still need some respone here!
Don’t understand what you mean.
Back when I was in school leaning Chinese, pinyin was secondary, we didn’t pay much attention to it. We focused mainly on the vocabulary and the basic sentence structures. Once we are done with that, we can pretty much understand most of the spoken Chinese. With that foundation set, we can learn “everything else” on our own from that point onward. There’s no complex sentence structure in Chinese, just complex and tedious vocabularies to memorize.
Hey,
In Part 1 Chapter 8 (Being Human) there’s a sentence “I’m happy” which is translated to “wǒ hěn kāixīn”.
Shouldn’t it be just “wǒ kāixīn”, cause “wǒ hěn kāixīn” means “I’m very happy”?
And also why “thirsty” and “hungry” are ones translated to “ele” and “kele” and on another time in “e” and “ke”?
Thanks in advance
In the course, we learn phrases only in pinyin, and after each lesson there is a section with characters, but it doesn’t teach us about where that character belongs to. Maybe by making the same lesson but with hanzi, learing would improve.
Typically, when we are describing ourselves to other people, we usually won’t say “我开心” just like that. We would insert “很”, making it “我很开心” to truly express our feelings. BUT, “我开心” has its use too. If someone were to asked you, “WHO is happy?” “(是)谁开心？”, we would reply “I am happy”, not “he”, not “she” but “me”, “我开心”.
饿 means “hungry”
饿了means “I’m hungry”
ps: anchiano has made valid points. This post is NOT to address his issues, it’s to clear the air, just in case other people reading were wondering too.
Oh, if that’s the case, yeah, I agree.
it is a great course, except one very disturbing/annyoing issue: the fact that the memrise algorithm cannot differenciate between pinyin and “characters” (as somehow pinyin without accents is called) - like in the wxample with I want = “woyao” any other version being “inccorect”, or “mianbao che” or “chuzu che” but “huoche”. Having the Hanzi alternatives accepted would solve the problem…
it is very bothersome to have to memorise idiosyncrasies of algorithms
From Mandarin Chinese 1:
bu2tai4hao3, meaning “not so well” should be accepted as “bu taihao”, not just “butaihao”.
From Mandarin Chinese 2:
qi4 che1, meaning “car; automobile”. Memrise insists on “qi che” but “qiche” without space should also be accepted. Same issue with huo3 che1 (train)
ba 吧 “…right?; …OK?” only accepted for multiple choice buttons, won’t allow other way round: “…OK, …right?”. Also the “…” could be merged with the text, no need for them to be separate buttons.
是 shì “yes; to be” is not accepted as “to be; yes”
“a lot” - “henduo” only accepted, “hen duo” not accepted.
Some more words with very strict rules about pinyin spaces (Mandarin Chinese 1/2): cài shìchǎng, wǒ kànjiàn, shāngchǎng
你好啊，
We are actually working on this to make the space rule more flexible and it will be implemented soon.
In the meantime, if you could share more details about how you find it (e.g. easier with no space at all, space between every word, space between meaningful units etc) that would be great because we want to hear from Chinese learners on this.
Yi (艺)
There is an error on Mandarin Chinese 2, Level 34:
nǐ děi mǎi yìbǎ yúsǎn - I have to buy an umbrella (is actually you have to buy an umbrella)
should be wǒ děi mǎi yìbǎ yúsǎn.
Thought it might confuse people.
Thanks.
Hi there,
I had a look at the course and it does say “you” actually.
Maybe send me an email ([email protected]) with screenshot if it displays incorrectly and we will look into it. 
Yi (艺）
There is an error in the newly updated Mandarin Course 2, in section 34. “Ni” is used in the Mandarin but the English has “I.” See attached screenshot. (I have others showing the same error in a different format of the question, but am only allowed to upload one.)
Thanks for sending this over Shansaylor,
I’ll check this again and get back to you later today.
Best,
Yi