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Japanese

かみくだく
Meaning: to break down a difficult idea into simple terms; to chew something into small pieces
Part of Speech: Verb

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Verb inflections

Verb inflections
Form Affirmative Negative
Present 噛み砕く 噛み砕かない
Polite 噛み砕きます 噛み砕きません
Past 噛み砕いた 噛み砕かなかった
Polite + Past 噛み砕きました 噛み砕きませんでした
Te-form 噛み砕いて 噛み砕かなくて
Potential 噛み砕ける 噛み砕けない
Passive 噛み砕かれる 噛み砕かれない
Causative 噛み砕かせる 噛み砕かせない
Causative + Passive 噛み砕かされる 噛み砕かされない
Imperative 噛み砕け 噛み砕くな

Example

先生は難しい内容を、学生にも分かるように噛み砕いて伝えた。
The teacher explained the difficult material in simple terms so that the students could understand it.

Usage Notes

It has a literal sense of crushing food by chewing and a very common figurative sense of making a complex explanation easy to understand.

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