不过今天时间不早了
“But it's getting late today.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
不过今天时间不早了
“But it's getting late today.”
想参加生死局
“If you want to take the death match,”
“We won't settle this right now; you'll have to wait if you want to challenge me.”
Citing objective external constraints like late hours (时间不早了) allows a speaker to stall, maintain composure, and dictate the pace of an encounter without showing weakness.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
it is getting late
The universal Chinese polite convention for wrapping up events, leaving gatherings, or deferring activities.
Signifies a change of state, marking that the current time has crossed into being late.
VOCABULARY & EXPRESSIONS
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“It's late now.”
“But today was really great! It could be even better, though.”
“I wouldn't have rushed you to get up today.”
“Mr. Zhao, it's late now. It's fine.”
“It's not 10 PM.”
“Well, it's getting late.”
“but we don't have enough time. Mr. Zheng, even if we have three more construction teams,”
“and that his days were numbered.”