[ember720]

Hello everyone. Nice to meet you all. I'm having a hard time with some questions on a chem quiz of mine. Chemistry is really difficult for me no matter how much I try to understand it. Forgive the pun (definitely not intended), but chemistry and I are like oil and water.

These are the questions I'm having trouble with:

1.) Draw the chemical structure for the following organic compounds, show all bonds between carbon atoms by using dashes:

a. 5-amino -2,6 -dimethyl- decane

b. Ethyl-propyl-ether

I'm lost as heck  I think for the A) question, there is a total of 10 carbons because it says "decane"? And that they are all single bonds??? Other than that, I look at that question and ask myself "What the hell do those numbers mean again?!?!?!" 

I thought I'd try asking here on this forum because I figured of all places on the web to go to, a chemistry forum would be my best bet.

I really do appreciate any help whatsoever and if anyone does take the time to help me out, I thank you very much.
I may or may not have a few more questions to ask. I just hope that if I do ask a ton of questions, that I'm not annoying people 

[Arkcon]

Good first guess, the ending -ane means an alkane, all single bonds.  And deca- means 10.  So can you start drawing this part?  You can draw and scan, post a computer drawn image, or just draw like this: C-C-C-C  Let's see if trying it out gives you an 'a-ha' moment for the rest of your questions.

[ember720]

I'm going to try drawing it out since I'm a visual learner (and seeing pictures/drawing them helps me better).


Yeah, so far, I got it that 5-amino -2,6 -dimethyl- decane is suppose to be a 10 carbon chain. I tried numbering them, but I hope I'm not getting too ahead of myself. I saw one website mention anything ending in  "yl" is a side chain, so dimethyl I think means two side chains? From there, I'm lost again.

[Arkcon]

Numbering them is exactly what you should do.  The -yl might mean side chain, but I don't think so.  At any rate, not in this case.  Can you draw the other groups now?