审到半夜才放我回来
“He once dragged me to the station and questioned me until midnight.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
“He once dragged me to the station and questioned me until midnight.”
审到半夜才放我回来
“He once dragged me to the station and questioned me until midnight.”
我就纳闷了
“I just couldn't figure it out.”
“They put me through hell for hours over nothing.”
Using the adverb 'cai' (only then) paired with a late time like 'midnight' is a classic Chinese grammatical pattern to complain that something took intolerably long.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
midnight; the middle of the night
Commonly used in daily conversation to emphasize how late an event lasted.
to release me and let me come back
Used when talking about being let go from detention, work, or someone else's control.
VOCABULARY & EXPRESSIONS
Parallel Spoken Cinema Scenes (语义近邻切片)
“Why are you back so late?”
“No matter how late it was, I would always go back.”
“Why are you back so late? Where did you go?”
“Why are you back so late?”
“I won't be home for dinner tonight. I can tell.”
“Getting back this late?”