他们都以为她活不下去了
“that they all thought she wouldn't survive.”
THE DIALOGUE REEL
“one of the clients mistreated her so badly”
他们都 以为 她 活不下去了
“that they all thought she wouldn't survive.”
准备把她拉出城外埋掉
“They planned to bury her out of the city,”
Direct spoken expression in this communicative setting.
Structures like '活不下去' vividly convey despair and physical impossibility in authentic Chinese storytelling.
LEARNING CHUNKS & PARTICLES
mistakenly thought / assumed
Indicates an assumption that turned out to be false or contradicted by subsequent events.
unable to survive / cannot make it through
A potential complement construction expressing the impossibility of continuing to live under extreme hardship.
Marks a change of state, indicating the critical threshold where survival was deemed no longer possible.
