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This is a follow-up question to my earlier question about decimal declensions in colloquial speech. I understand that in everyday speech, native speakers bend the rules a little, and may not fully decline long decimal expressions ("pi equals 3.14159...").

But what about short decimals? For example, in everyday speech — or even in a radio or TV broadcast — how would one say "ot 1,4% do 5,7%"? Could you say the following?

"ot odnoj [pause] chetyrekh procenta do pjati [pause] semi procenta"

2 Answers 2

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For short ones like that, having 1-3 digits after the coma (Russian uses a comma, not a dot in decimal fractions) we usually use the full form:

от 1,4% дo 5,7% is

от одной целой [и] четырёх десятых процента до пяти целых [и] семи десятых процента

Alternatively, rather colloquially, one can say that in such a way:

от одного и четырёх процентов до пяти и семи процентов

If there are 2 digits after the comma, we say it like this:

от 1,45% дo 5,72%

от одной целой [и] сорока пяти сотых процента до пяти целых [и] семидесяти двух сотых процента

Alternatively,

от одного [и] сорока пяти процента до пяти [и] семидесяти двух процентов

The point is, we can omit the word 'целая' (the feminine is used, because it is short for 'целая часть'), then the numeral becomes masculine agreeing with "процент", and we can omit the name of the place of the last digit (разряд), which are десятая for 1 digit after the comma, сотая for 2 digits after the comma, тысячная for 3 digits after the comma, and so on, they are also feminine, because it is short for 'десятая (сотая, etc.) часть':

1,1 одна целая [и] одна десятая
1,11 одна целая [и] одинадцать сотых
1,111 одна целая [и] сто одинадцать тысячных
1,1111 одна целая [и] тысяча сто одинадцать десятитысячных

But if there are several digits after the comma we never say them as separate digits, like in English, we tend to say them as a full number:

3,141 три целых [и] сто сорок одна тысячная / три [и] сто сорок одна

I really don't know what link or proof I can give, but I'm a linguist, a native speaker of Russian, and I studied at a mathematical school.

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  • I agree that we drop word целая changing it to и and the phrase became "от одного и сорока пяти процента". I (and other people, too) also sometimes change order of words placing "процент" immediately after "одного": от одного процента сорока пяти [сотых] до ...
    – farfareast
    Dec 16, 2012 at 5:12
  • That's true. @farfareast
    – Yellow Sky
    Dec 16, 2012 at 11:05
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In everyday speech we are omit 'percent' first word in range 1,4%-5,7%, like an other measure unit:

  • 1,4% - 5,7% = 1,4-5,7%
  • 2kg - 3kg = 2-3kg
  • 50cm - 70cm = 50-70cm

Comma (decimal point) replaced by ...[pause] or 'и'. Also you may or may not to decline for cases integer and/or fractional part.

"от 1,4% до 5,7%" I'd pronounce like:

  • от одного и четырёх до пяти и семи процента
    (от одного [процента] и четырёх [десятых] до пяти [целых] и семи [десятых] процента)
  • от одной и четыре до пяти и семи процента
    (от одной [целой] и четыре [десятых] до пяти [целых] и семи [десятых] процента)
  • от одного и четыре до пяти и семь процента
    (от одного [процента] и четыре [десятых] до пяти [целых] и семь [десятых] процента)
  • от один и четыре до пять и семь процента
    (separate digits only, like in English)

"1,4-5,7%"
"один-и-четыре тире пять-и-семь процента" (separate digits with dash)

"1,2%"

  • один и два процента (separate digits only)
  • одна и две процента (omit words: одна [целая] и две [десятых] процента)
  • один и две процента (mixed case: один [процент] и две [десятых] процента)

All this phases acceptable to colloquial speech, but not all to Radio and TV.

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