diff --git a/extensions/markdown/syntaxes/markdown.tmLanguage b/extensions/markdown/syntaxes/markdown.tmLanguage
index da80a9e0bd8..d2f86783846 100644
--- a/extensions/markdown/syntaxes/markdown.tmLanguage
+++ b/extensions/markdown/syntaxes/markdown.tmLanguage
@@ -476,7 +476,7 @@
 								</dict>
 							</array>
 							<key>while</key>
-							<string>\G([ ]{4}|\t|$)</string>
+							<string>(^|\G)([ ]{4}|\t)</string>
 						</dict>
 						<dict>
 							<key>begin</key>
@@ -503,7 +503,7 @@
 								</dict>
 							</array>
 							<key>while</key>
-							<string>\G([ ]{4}|\t|$)</string>
+							<string>(^|\G)([ ]{4}|\t)</string>
 						</dict>
 					</array>
 				</dict>