咱们川军穷得叮当响 给不起
“Our Sichuan Army is dirt poor. We can't afford it.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
两天了 人家是要拿钱放人
“It's been two days. They want money to let us go.”
咱们川军 穷得叮当响 给不起
“Our Sichuan Army is dirt poor. We can't afford it.”
他们要是真急了眼 不能啥事都干得出来吧 不至于
“If they really get desperate, they won't do anything crazy, right? Not likely.”
Direct spoken expression in this communicative setting.
Historically during the Republican era and War of Resistance, the Sichuan Army was famous for being severely under-equipped and poorly funded despite fierce fighting spirit.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
penniless / dirt poor / completely broke
A vivid onomatopoeic idiom describing someone so impoverished that only empty copper coins or air clink in their pockets.
cannot afford to give/pay
Potential complement construction expressing financial inability to pay a requested amount.
VOCABULARY & EXPRESSIONS
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“The Central Army looks down on our Sichuan Army. You jerk”
“This is the Sichuan Army? But we're friendly! Yeah. We are.”
“the Central Army will make you pay for it!”
“The camp lacks all sorts of resources.”
“Doesn't that make things even harder? Yeah, Jun's going to have a rough time.”
“it's more than enough to cover the military funding gap. We even have some to spare.”