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unpakwon

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What does "broken" mean in the following?

He experimented with fasts that lasted from days to a couple of weeks and then were broken with water and leafy vegetables.

And what is the subject of "broken," he or fasts?

Thank you.
 

masterding

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What does "broken" mean in the following?

He experimented with fasts that lasted from days to a couple of weeks and then were broken with water and leafy vegetables.

And what is the subject of "broken," he or fasts?

Thank you.
Not a teacher, not a native,but obviously the suject of "broken" is fasts ,because" he " can not be followed by "were".
"broken with" means someone starts doing in a completely new way, in this case I think it means he continued the experiment with eating some water and leafy vegetables.?"(not fast)
let's see what teachers will say.
 

TheParser

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He experimented with fasts that lasted from days to a couple of weeks and then were broken with water and leafy vegetables.

And what is the subject of "broken," he or fasts?


NOT A TEACHER


(1) I agree with Masterding.

(2) He experimented with fasts that lasted from days to a couple of weeks and [he

experimented with fasts that] then were broken with hot water and leafy vegetables.
 

5jj

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'That', referring back to 'fasts' is the grammatical subject of were broken.
 

emsr2d2

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When you fast, you don't eat or drink anything. When you finally eat or drink something, you "break" your "fast". It's where we get the word "breakfast" (the first meal of the day) from. You have been asleep all night, so you haven't eaten or drunk anything, then you get up and "break" the "fast".
 

unpakwon

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I see.

Thank you all for the help.
 
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