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Decimals in written form (thousandths)

Learn how to read and write decimals in different forms, focusing on thousandths. Learn how to decompose a decimal into its parts (20,000, 5/10, and 7/1000) and rewrite it as 20,000 and 507/1000. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • spunky sam blue style avatar for user Waffles the great!
    Wait, you can put a comma in a decimal problem?!
    (42 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Armand van Tonder
      Yes, you can, and should according to most Mathematicians. The standard notation is to use a period as a decimal point, and a comma to separate thousands, millions, billions, etc.
      For example:
      One thousand should be written as 1,000
      One thousand and twelve-hundredths should be written as 1,000.12
      (57 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user morgank265
    I am In College technical math and have always used a calculator to do this simple math how do u write 643.30211 in words. know how to write any thing to the left of the decimal in words but when u combine the tenths place with the hundredths place it confuses me
    (17 votes)
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    • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Haseeb
      So when you deal with decimals you always have to remember that the first number to the right of the decimal is a tenth. The one after it is a hundreth. Say that you have the fraction 1/10. In words, you can say that 1/10 is one tenth and in decimal form, it is 0.1. I'm not sure if I answered your question but I hope this helped.
      (6 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user cewe.connor
    this confuses me so much
    (15 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Julie Krall
    My son is writing decimals in word form and he did not put the "dash" between the number before the decimal and got it counted wrong. For example, for 85.8 he wrote: eighty five and eight tenths and got it counted wrong because it was suppose to be eighty - five and eight tenths. Do you think this should have been counted wrong? I surely don't! If so please explain your reasoning. Thanks you!
    (9 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user caris.g0589
    who invented math
    (5 votes)
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  • duskpin seedling style avatar for user David Wilson
    Hi, if you have any questions, just ask.
    (7 votes)
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  • blobby blue style avatar for user Pranesh Prakashbabu
    Do decimal numbers keep going

    And at like you added a comma in 20,000 so I’m confused
    (5 votes)
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    • mr pants purple style avatar for user genny
      It depends on what kind of decimal you have. Like if you have 0.5, or one half, it can have infinite zeros after the 5. it would like this: 0.5000000000000000. No matter how many zeros you put after the 0.5 it will not change its value. If you were to add a number in there like this: 0.501000, it is no longer exactly one half. Other numbers like pi have an infinite amount of numbers too. It would look like this: 3.1415926535... (dot dot dots are added to show that the number is a "non terminating decimal")
      I hope that helps
      (8 votes)
  • leaf green style avatar for user Aways
    can we just say for example 700.5 seven hundred point five?
    (5 votes)
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  • cacteye purple style avatar for user 1315092068
    who else is just speeding up the video?
    (8 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user 585827
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    ⢐⣯⠞⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣄⠱⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⡧⠟⠆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⠿⢿⠿⠿⣿⡿⣿⠃⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿
    ⡾⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⢦⡈⠂⠀⠑⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢠⣿⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠒⡄⠀⠀⠑⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣤⣦⣦⣼⡏⠳⣜⢿⠻⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠀⢠⣷⣦⣤⣀⣀⣀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠻⠆⠸⣎⣧⠀⠈⠙⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣄⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⣠⡄⠀⣿⢹⡇⢸⡀⠀⠈⠻⢿⣿⣿⣿
    (7 votes)
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Video transcript

So I'm going to write out a number that we're going to think about how we could say or actually write that number. So I'm just going to write it out. I'm going to resist the temptation to actually speak it out because that's normally how I operate. But I'm not going to do that right now. So there's several ways that we can pronounce. So I encourage you to pause it and try to pronounce it, yourself. You might not even need to pause it. Well, the first thing that jumps out, well we've got 20,000 and then some. So maybe we should write it that way. So we've got 20,000. 20-- actually let me write it out as numbers first to really decompose it. So we have 20,000. And then what do we have on top of that? Well we have 5/10. This is the tenths place. So we can literally write that as 5/10. 5/10. Then we have 0, 0/100. I'll write that as a hundredths place just so that we can keep track of it. And then finally, we have 7/1000, that's the 1000th place. So we could write that, plus 7/1000. So if we would write down everything that I just spoke out loud, we would say that this is 20-- let me write that a little bit neater. This is 20,000. 20,000 and 5/10. And 5-- let me write out the word-- and 5/10 and 7/1000. Now, this isn't the only way to say this. Another way of thinking about it is to try to merge the 5/10 and the 7/1000 in terms of thousandths. So let's think about this. So we could write this as-- so once again, we would have our 20,000. But instead of 5/10 and 7/1000, let's write our 5/10 in terms of thousandths. And the easiest way to do it is to multiply the numerator and denominator, both here, by 100. So then we will have-- so this 5/10 is the same thing as 500 over 1,000. And the 7/1000 is still 7/1000. And these two combined are 507/1000. So we could just call this 20,000 and 507/1000. so let's write that down. So we could just say this is 20,000 and 507/1000. This is 1/1000, while this right over here, 1,000, of course, actually represents 1,000. So we got 20 thousands, that's that right over there, and 507/1000.