Won't work for other numbers, though-there are no such words. Russian has words "треть" and "четверть" which mean "a third" and "a quarter" respectively. Always use feminine when the form exposes gender.įor quarters and thirds you can also use "одна треть" and "две четверти". The numerator of a fraction is always a cardinal number and the denominator is an ordinal number in Genitive (singular if the numerator ends in "одна" and plural if that's not the case). The way of pronouncing these expressions that I mentioned initially is just an abbreviation of these more precise terms.
![how do you do division of fractions how do you do division of fractions](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4WvoOuMAS4o/ToMTEjYU9uI/AAAAAAAABiY/ebjh3GWgC14/s1600/fractions.gif)
If you want to be more explicit about the operation when pronouncing the notation, then x/y is икс разделить на игрек and xy is икс умножить на игрек. The context makes it clear which one is meant. If you think it is crazy to pronounce x/y and xy in the same way, compare with the use of the term "to scale" in English, where for instance "scaling an equation by two" could mean multiplying both sides by two or dividing both sides by two.
![how do you do division of fractions how do you do division of fractions](http://msgillen.weebly.com/uploads/8/7/2/0/8720672/9758704_orig.png)
From context it would be clear if на means multiplication or division.
![how do you do division of fractions how do you do division of fractions](http://www.wikihow.com/images/2/29/Divide-Fractions-by-Fractions-Step-11-Version-3.jpg)
Moreover, a product xy is pronounced the same way if you want to include a word representing the operation (often you do not and would pronounce xy simply as икс игрек a case when it is natural to pronounce the operation in a product would be x*2, unlike 2x - in fact if you tried to pronounce x*2 as икс два then people would think you mean the indexed expression x_2). A fraction x/y is pronounced by mathematicians as икс на игрек.