How To Add Fractions With Different Denominators

Let us say you want to add two fractions that don't share a common denominator. What we need to do first is that we need these two fractions to have a common denominator. A way of doing that, that will always work for you, is the following.

The first step is to realise that five and three are important.What we need to do is multiply this fraction with this denominator on top and bottom to create an equivalent fraction which we can use. One, multiplied by five and three multiplied by five is the first step.

And in the second fraction, we need to multiply this numerator and this denominator by this denominator to give us another equivalent fraction that will work for us. Four times three and five times three. Now as you can see, three times five and five times three are going to give us the same denominator of fifteen.

So this new version of our original addition is the following. Five divided by fifteen plus twelve over fifteen. And now we are left with a problem, which is simple to solve, because both fractions have a common denominator.

five fifteens plus twelve fifteens, remember the denominator does not change and we only add the numerator. to give us seventeen divided by fifteen. And this is how to add fractions with different denominators.