the metric system understanding the metric metric system is pretty easy if you understand what the various prefixes mean for example we have kilo which means a thousand hecto which means 100 deca if you think of a decade has ten years deca means ten then you have dusty which is one-tenth you have Centene if you think of there's a hundred cents in a dollar or hundred years in a century means 1/100 and milli means one one thousandth now there are three base units in the metric system there are meters leaders and grams meters are used for calculating distances leaders for capacity and gram grams for weight and one way to remember these three base units is my large giraffe so it'd be meter liter gram so what exactly is a meter well if you were to spread your arms the distance your wingspan would be approximately a meter and a meters a little bit larger than a yard a yard is 36 inches and a meter is about 39 inches so it's slightly larger than a yard now if we were to take those prefixes that we just talked about and attach them to the base unit meter a kilometer or a kilometer would be 1,000 meters if you take hecto and attach it to the word meter it's a hectometer and you would have 100 meters a decameter would be 10 meters a decimeter would be 1/10 of a meter a centimeter which is very small it's like the width of your finger would be 1/100 of a meter and a millimeter is really small that's one one thousandth of a meter you could think of that as maybe the thickness of a dime so what is a leader well when you at the store and you've seen various beverages on the shelves generally they come in liter bottles and leaders are used for capacity milliliters which are a thousandth of a liter you can think of an eyedropper and depending on the size of the eyedropper can hold anywhere from one to maybe ten milliliters so let's take the base unit leader and let's attach our prefixes so a Killa leader would be a thousand liters a hectoliter would be 100 liters a deca leader would be ten liters a deciliter would be one tenth of a liter a Sun a liter would be one 100th of a liter and a milliliter remember that's a really small amounts like an eyedropper that would be one one thousandth of a liter well what about a gram which is used for weight well a gram weighs about the same as a paperclip or a small piece of chalk and if you had a thousand grams that would be a kilogram and that weighs 2.2 pounds approximately 2.2 pounds or perhaps the weight of your math text so let's take the base unit gram and let's attach the prefixes to that so we have a kilogram that would be a thousand grams or 2.2 pounds a hectare gram would be a hundred grams a deca gram would be 10 grams a decigram would be 1/10 of a gram and a centigram would be one one hundredth of a gram if you've ever had to take aspirin it's generally measured in milligrams and a milligram is one one thousandth of a gram ok let's talk about abbreviations really quickly and the metric system it's pretty easy if you wanted to write the abbreviation for kilometer it BK for kilo and I'm 4 meter hectometer BH for hecto and M for meter now these two are tricky because they both start with D just remember that decameter it has a K in it and also the abbreviation for decameter has a K in it you'll notice that decimeter has no K so that's how you can tell the difference between deca and dusty centimeter that's easy would just be C for sin T and M for meter and millimeter is mm M for Millie and M for meter okay let's take a look at the abbreviations for these a kiloliter had BK l hectoliter HL here's our two prefixes that start with D remember dekaliter has the K and then you have sent a leaner and milliliter so that's pretty much all the riddance to the metric system