Last night, we got the first lesson from the new textbook and I noticed that they write na2li. This is Yale, though; I'm not sure if they follow different rules for the transcription of tones than Pinyin. In any case, the second character really does sound "toneless" to me even if I'm not 100% sure what the tone is on na3.
Unfortunately, the first symbol above isn't displaying in my browser. I'll assume, however, that it's the Pinyin r. You're right, she does hit that one very consistently--probably because there's no corresponding voiced aveolar fricative to confuse it with. She doesn't just pronounce retroflexes as aveolars, she also overcorrects: Last night, she confused the newbie by repeatedly pronouncing 從 as chong2.
no subject
Unfortunately, the first symbol above isn't displaying in my browser. I'll assume, however, that it's the Pinyin r. You're right, she does hit that one very consistently--probably because there's no corresponding voiced aveolar fricative to confuse it with. She doesn't just pronounce retroflexes as aveolars, she also overcorrects: Last night, she confused the newbie by repeatedly pronouncing 從 as chong2.