Decimal Declension

Question

I've always thought that the formal rules for declining decimals in Russian seem a little...unwieldy. For example, I gather that the correct way to say "pi is approximately equal to 3.14159" -- which isn't an uncommon thing to say, at least in some circles -- would require one to say something like

пи примерно равно трём целым, четырнадцати тысячам ста пятидесяти девяти стотысячным

Of course, an English speaker would just say "3-point-one-four-one-five-nine".

My question is -- do native Russian speakers actually take the correct approach in colloquial speech? Is there no easier way?

Answer 1

No, we do not use the "correct" way of pronouncing with сто тысячными. In colloquial speech we would pronounce it as "Три запятая четырнадцать сто пятьдесят девять" или "Три запятая сто сорок один пятьсот девяносто два".

Interesting fact is that Russians tend to group digits by 2 or 3 (f.e. сто сорок один) when pronounce while English usually pronounce by single digits (one four one). It is applicable to phone numbers as well.

EDIT: Answering DET's question of how to decline that simplified pronunciation of fractions. We bend the rules here and say "пи равно три [pause] сто сорок один пятьсот девяносто два..." because the other possibility "пи равно трем [pause] ста сорока двум пятистам девяноста двум..." or "трем четырнадцати пятнадцати девяноста двум" sounds completely ugly.

EDIT1: Answering KCd's question about pronouncing groups of digits that start with zeros. First of all, I must say that pronouncing long decimal fractions does not differ from pronouncing any long sequences of digits. I tried to find on internet any standards that regulate this. I found only these:

1. Федеральные авиационные правила. Item 2.3 refers to "usual spoken language" and gives no more details.

   При ведении радиообмена на русском языке при передаче цифровых значений используется простой разговорный язык.

2. Правила радиосвязи на внутренних водных путях Item 131 gives more details (note, that there is "typo" there: "пятизначные группы 25, 46" should be read as "двузначные группы 25, 46"). This indirectly confirms that in Russian we prefer 2- and 3-digit groups. This standard, though, does not say anything about zeros.

So, now I'm free to formulate "usual spoken language" rules for pronouncing zeros. :-)

1. In groups starting from one or more zeros the zeros are never omitted. They are always pronounced. For example 4203 - сорок два [pause] ноль три. This is because the rule of pronouncing the digits in groups of the same size - is a weak rule and can be broken in the middle of the number for convenience of pronouncing or remembering. See my example of pronouncing "e" (2 7 1828 1828). In 99% of cases though the rule is respected: if you started to pronounce in groups of 3, you continue by groups of 3 till the end.
2. If there are group of subsequent zeros (like 000 in 1230003), you often do not pronounce each of them separately but instead pronounce два ноля, три ноля ... десять нолей, and then continue possibly with the same size of group as you started. So, i.e. 4,200032 can be pronounced as четыре и два три нуля тридцать два. It still also can be pronounced as четыре, двести ровно, ноль тридцать два.
3. If the group is ending with zeros (as 200 or 20) it may create ambiguity. I.e. if you say двести, тридцать два, it may mean 200 32 (here you voluntary switched from 3-digit groups to 2-digit, or involuntary because it was the end of the sequence), or 232. In this case, to eliminate the ambiguity we say "двести ровно, тридцать два" (two hundred sharp, thirty two), or make an enormously long pause between 200 and 32.

Answer 2

Use of тысячных, миллионных etc., belongs only to the 5th year of the middle school.

I would say: три, четырнадцать, сто пятьдесят девять. Pronouncing "запятая" is excessive and won't be used really.

Correct about grouping. Also I would add, that the choose of how many digits are in the groups, decides the speaker, according to his own reasons.