[adinboy]

I am getting confused about this the more problems I do on it. My understanding was that only strong acids and strong bases will react to produce water and a salt. Something like this:
Molecular Eq: HCl(aq) + NaOH(aq) H₂O(l) + NaCl
Net Ionic Eq: H⁺(aq) +OH^-(aq)  H₂O(l)

Makes perfect sense, both the acid and base break apart and combine with each other. But then I ran across something like this:
Molecular Eq: 2 CH₃CO₂H (aq) + Ba(OH)₂ (aq)  Ba(CH₃CO₂)₂ (aq) + 2 H₂O (l)
Net Ionic Eq: 2CH₃CO₂H (aq) + 2OH^-(aq) 2CH₃CO₂^-(aq) + 2H₂O (l)

The net ionic eq tells me that CH₃CO₂H will not break apart, but the molecular equation tells me that they will break apart and form a salt with Ba. I'm so confused by this. Why are they giving two opposing pieces of information? Am I missing something here?

[Borek]

My understanding was that only strong acids and strong bases will react to produce water and a salt.

Nope, weak acids/bases react exactly the same way. Produced salt will usually hydrolyze to some extent, depending on the acid/base strength, but in most cases this reverse reaction is stoichiometrically negligible (that is, it may change pH, but it doesn't change the stoichiometry substantially - amount of salt produced is that expected).