chip away at

Hi there ,students. To chip away, intransitive, or chip away at, transitive. Ok, this means to reduce something slowly and gradually. For example, the bills that I receive every month are more than my salary and they chip away at my savings. They reduce a small piece by small piece. So what is this chip? Well you know a chip, to eat, we all know chips to eat, but a glass or a plate, maybe if you drop it or hit it, it doesn't break completely, but you just..remove a little chip, a little piece. You could have a chip of glass, or a chip of plate, maybe a chip of stone even. Ok, so you are chipping away at something, you are removing little chips, little tiny pieces. When a sculptor makes the statue, he chips away at the piece of stone, he removes little chips piece by piece. He is chipping away at the stone. Ok, to chip away at, to reduce slowly and steadily. Ok, yeah, this is the idea of to chip away at something, to reduce it in a steady way.  If you have a very very big job that you need to do, and you can't do it all at once, I recommend you chip away at it, piece by piece by piece, so you do a little piece of the job and another little piece, another little piece. And suddenly after a long time, you've done all of it. To chip away at, to reduce something slowly and surely. Yeah, ok anyway, so if you enjoy the video, give it a rating; subscribe to my channel and I will see you soon. Bye for now.

各位！ to chip away, 這裡用的是不及物形式，或者to chip away at則是及物動詞形式，它的意思是緩慢地、逐漸地減少某樣東西。­比如，我每月收到的賬單金額超過了我的薪水，它們在逐漸蠶食我的­積蓄，它們一點一點地減少我的積蓄。那麼這裡的chip是什麼意­思？我們都知道chip是吃的東西，但是我們將玻璃或者盤子掉在­地上打碎它們的時候，它們並不會徹底碎掉，有時僅掉下一點碴，比­如一片玻璃碎片、一片盤子碎片或者一小片石頭碎片。所以當你ch­ip away at 某樣東西的時候，你將它一點一點地削減。當雕刻家雕刻雕像的時候­，他慢慢鑿掉石塊，一片一片地逐漸削掉石片，他在chippin­g away at這塊石頭，他在鑿掉石屑。to chip away at就是將某樣東西緩慢而持續地縮小。這就是to chip away at用詞的由來，穩定地縮減某個東西。如果你有某樣非常非常艱巨的工作要做，你無法馬上完成，我建議你­to chip away at 這個工作，逐漸削減、蠶食它，不停地一點一點地做。很長一段時間­之後，你會突然發現你已經將它完成了。chip away at就是要穩定而緩慢地去削減某樣東西。好了，如果你喜歡這個錄­像，請留下一個‘喜歡’評級；訂閱我的頻道，我將很快和你又見面­。