How to Turn a Fraction into a Decimal?

You must divide the numerator by the denominator when looking for how to turn a fraction into a decimal. There’s nothing more to it!

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples below:

1. As you can see, we’re looking to convert 1/2 to a decimal.
2. All we need to do is find the answer to 1 ÷ 2, which is 0.5.
3. There we have it! 0.5 is our final answer.

Let’s try another example that’s a little bit trickier this time. Again, we’ll go through it more slowly to ensure we reach the right answer.

1. This time, we’re converting 30/50 to a decimal.
2. To start with, we could do with simplifying this. The easiest way is to remove the zeroes from the end of the numerator and denominator, seeing as 3/5 is equivalent to 30/50.
3. Now that we have a simpler fraction, we can start by working out 1 ÷ 5, which gives us 0.2.
4. As we’re working out 3/5, we need to answer 0.2 × 3 = 0.6.
5. Our final answer is that 30/50 as a decimal is 0.6.

How to convert a decimal to a fraction

Now it’s time to look at how to convert a decimal to a fraction. When it comes to simpler fractions, what we need to do is place the number over its place value. So, for example, if we’re converting 0.6, then as the zero is one place to the left of the decimal place, it would be 6/10.

Of course, not every fraction is quite so easy to convert. So let’s take a look at what we’d do with more complex fractions:

1. We’re looking to convert 0.125 to a fraction. So let’s start by converting it to a fraction over one, so we have 0.125/1.
2. Let’s multiply the numerator and denominator by 1000, so our fraction is a whole number.
3. We now have 125/1000. In this case, we know that 125 divides into 1000 eight times, so that we can simplify it.
4. Our final answer is that 0.125 as a fraction is 1/8.

Let’s take a look at another example. Soon, your class will be masters in converting decimals to fractions:

This time, we’re going to convert 0.84 into a fraction.

1. We change it to 0.84/1 before multiplying by 100 to reach a whole number on the top.
2. Our fraction is now 84/100.
3. The highest common factor (the number that both of these numbers can divide into) is 4, so we divide both the numerator and denominator by 4.
4. Our final simplified fraction is 21/25.