要不是出了彤彤那个事
“If it hadn't been for that incident with Tong,”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
是啊
“She really is.”
要不是 出 了 彤彤 那个 事
“If it hadn't been for that incident with Tong,”
说不定
“who knows?”
“Things would be so much better right now if that misfortune hadn't messed everything up.”
Chinese conversations frequently use conditional laments like 'if not for that matter' to delicately attribute current shortfalls to unavoidable past family crises rather than personal failure.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
if it weren't for / were it not for
A common spoken conditional marker used to introduce a counterfactual cause of present misfortune.
something bad happened to...
A standard colloquial frame for referencing an accident, crisis, or troubling situation.