你让人家 喝西北风去啊
“how would the workers get by?”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
那些小矿 不都停工整改呢吗 哪能停啊 说停就停
“Aren't those small mines supposed to be suspended for rectification? How could they just stop? If they stopped just like that,”
你让 人家 喝西北风 去啊
“how would the workers get by?”
“Work is still in full swing there.”
“If we stop work, these people will starve to death.”
An ancient Chinese idiomatic metaphor for extreme poverty and starvation, widely used today to protest financial cuts or unemployment.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
to drink the northwest wind (to go hungry / starve / have nothing to live on)
A vivid and very common colloquial idiom describing having zero income or food.
to make someone / to force others to
Used when emphasizing an unfair or harsh situation being imposed on another party.
Elevates the rhetorical question into an indignant protest.
VOCABULARY & EXPRESSIONS
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“am I supposed to live off nothing?”
“You'll starve to death there!”
“my whole family will starve. Now you're scared?”
“Otherwise, our whole family would be out on the street.”
“how will we keep doing our business? We'll lose everything.”
“will have nothing to live on.”