[Kimyko]

I'm studying the nomenclature of all these compounds and stuff, and I'm a little confused with the one for Esters.

Uhm, in our book, it gives us instructions on how to find the names. It says:

1. Name the parent compound.

2. Add the name of the alkyl group.

3. Leave appropriate spaces in the name.

And then it gives us an example of a correctly named ester, which was called ethyl ethanoate.

                      O
                      ||
CH₃ -- C -- O -- CH₂ -- CH₃

And my problem is, I can't see how they got that.

I thought ethyl was used when there were two carbon atoms in the alkyl group. And the Alkyl group is the one that branches off from the parent hydrocarbon...right?

And when they elaborated on number one, they said, "Name the carboxylic acid from which the ester was formed."

And while that sounds simple, I can't seem to grasp that because they look different, I think. So I don't really understand what that's asking us to do.

All in all, this one in particular just confuses me. I would really appreciate any help.

In addition to that, though, there is one other thing that confuses me just a little. It's for Amines. I thought I had it, but then there was one that threw me off.

CH₃ -- N -- H   (Methylamine)
                         |
                         H

and

CH₃ -- N -- H    (Ethylmethlamine)
                         |
                        CH₂ -- CH₃

Both of these, I think I understand. For the first one, There is one carbon atom in what I think is the parent compound, so, it's just methylamine while in the second one, there is one carbon in the parent compound, so it's methylamine, but there's also an alkyl group branching off from that which has two carbons, so it's ethylmethlamine, right?

So following that same logic, I couldn't understand this example:

                         CH₃
                          |
CH₃ -- N -- CH₃ 
                       

 (Trimethlamine)

Aren't there two carbons in the parent compound and one in the alkyl group? So shouldn't ethyl be in there somwhere alone with methane?

And when writing this, I probably messed up the names of some of the stuff. They all sound really similar, so I apologize for that. Also, I'm sorry, but for some reason, the lines just won't line up with the correct element and I don't know how to fix that....

[Rich2189]

For the ester:

The best way to name esters it to look at the molecules that formed it. In the case of ethyl ethanoate it is formed from ethanoic  acid and ethanol.

                             O
                             ||
{CH3 -- CH2 --} {O -- C -- CH3}
alcohol           carboxylic acid
ethyl                eth - 2 carbons  wack oate on the end

Therefore: ethyl ethanoate.

ethanol + propanoic acid:

                             O
                             ||
{CH3 -- CH2 --} {O -- C -- CH2 --CH3}
alcohol           carboxylic acid
ethyl                prop - 3 carbons  wack oate on the end

Therefore: ethyl propanoate.