Food texture · Food and eating
tough
hard to chew
Tough food is difficult to cut or chew.
This vs that
The beef is tough.
The sweets are chewy.
Hear it in real life
How was your steak?
Pretty tough, unfortunately. I could hardly cut it.
The chicken was tough, so I left most of it on my plate.
Which sounds natural?
Psst — which one would you actually say?
Tough is the normal concise criticism for food that is unpleasantly hard to chew.
The mistake everyone makes
Not: The steak is very hard for chewing.
Say: The steak is too tough to chew.
Use tough to describe the texture and to chew after too tough.
Say it together
Whole chunks natives use with it.
too tough to chew
The steak was too tough to chew properly.
The beef had been cooked too long and was too tough to chew.
Food texture words
Food and eating · Food texture: the words around “tough”.
Your turn: say it out loud
The steak's really tough.
Say it out loud two or three times, until it feels like yours.
tough
hard to chew
“The chicken was tough, so I left most of it on my plate.”
heytardy