What is the best way to practice times tables?

Short, daily, and in mixed order. Five focused minutes a day beats an hour once a week, because a fact strengthens each time you retrieve it rather than each minute you look at it. Reciting a table in order builds a chain, not recall - you end up counting from the start. Mixing the order forces genuine retrieval.

How long does it take to learn the times tables?

Most learners get to reliable recall in six to ten weeks at five to ten minutes a day, provided practice is mixed rather than recited. It is faster than people expect because only a handful of the 144 facts are genuinely hard - the rest are covered by patterns, by the commutative pairing, or are already known.

Which times tables are the hardest?

Once you remove the easy tables and count each pair only once, the genuinely hard facts are roughly 6x7, 6x8, 7x8, 7x9, 6x6 and 7x7. Nearly everything else is covered by a pattern. Targeting those few directly is far more efficient than drilling all 144.

Do you need to learn both 3 x 8 and 8 x 3?

No. Multiplication gives the same answer in either order, so every fact you learn comes with a free twin. That single idea halves the amount to memorize, and it is worth teaching explicitly rather than leaving to be noticed.

Times Tables Practice

Knowing the times tables by heart makes everything else in math faster — division, fractions, percentages and every mental-arithmetic shortcut lean on them. The good news is that you don't have to grind through 144 facts. Most of them come free.

There are only about six hard facts

Start with the full 144 and take away everything that isn't really memorization:

×1 and ×10 are rules, not facts. That's 36 gone.
×2 is doubling, which almost everyone can already do. And ×5 and ×9 have patterns so strong they barely need learning (below).
Every fact has a twin. 3 × 8 and 8 × 3 are the same fact. That halves whatever is left.

What survives is a small core — roughly 6×7, 6×8, 7×8, 7×9, 6×6 and 7×7. If you are going to spend attention anywhere, spend it there. They are highlighted in the grid below.

This matters more than it sounds. "Learn your times tables" feels like an enormous task and that is why it gets avoided. "Learn six facts, and know the patterns for the rest" is a different job entirely, and it is the true one.

The tricks worth knowing, table by table

×9 — on your fingers

Hold up ten fingers. For 9 × 4, fold down the 4th finger: 3 fingers to the left (30) and 6 to the right (6) → 36.

×9 is ×10 minus one lot. So the tens digit is always one less than the number you multiplied, and the two digits always add to 9. The fingers just read that off.

×5 — halve, then ×10

5 × 8 → half of 8 is 4 → 40. Every answer ends in 0 or 5.

×4 — double, then double again

4 × 7 → 14 → 28. Similarly ×8 is double, double, double.

×11 — repeat the digit

For single digits, just double it up: 11 × 7 = 77. For two digits, add the digits and drop the sum in the middle: 11 × 23 → 2 (2+3) 3 → 253.

×3 — double it, then add one more

3 × 7 → double 7 is 14, plus 7 → 21. Useful while the 3s are still settling.

×6 — the ×5 you already know, plus one more

6 × 7 → 5 × 7 = 35, plus 7 → 42. This is the fastest route into the hard middle of the grid, because the 5s are easy.

The grid, with the hard facts marked

×	3	4	6	7	8	9
3	9	12	18	21	24	27
4	12	16	24	28	32	36
6	18	24	36	42	48	54
7	21	28	42	49	56	63
8	24	32	48	56	64	72
9	27	36	54	63	72	81

A useful one to hold on to: 56 = 7 × 8 reads as 5, 6, 7, 8.

How to practice so it sticks

Mix the order

Reciting "3, 6, 9, 12…" builds a chain, not recall. Asked 3 × 7 cold, a chain-learner counts from the start. Mixed questions force real retrieval, which is the thing that strengthens memory.

Short and daily

Five minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday. A fact strengthens each time you pull it out of memory, so ten retrievals spread over ten days is worth far more than fifty in one sitting.

Let the gap grow

Facts you get right should come back less often; facts you miss should come back sooner. That is spaced repetition, and it is why a good practice app beats a paper worksheet — the worksheet asks everything equally, whether you needed it or not.

Chase speed only after accuracy

Timing a fact that isn't secure teaches guessing. Get it right reliably first, then let it get quick — which it will, on its own.

A four-week plan

Week 1: the free ones — ×1, ×2, ×5, ×10. Establish the daily habit, five minutes.
Week 2: ×9 (fingers) and ×3 (double and add one more). Keep mixing week 1 in.
Week 3: ×4 and ×8 by doubling. Everything from weeks 1-2 stays in the mix.
Week 4: the hard core — 6×6, 6×7, 6×8, 7×7, 7×8, 7×9. Six facts, one week, plenty of time.

Practice by swiping

Math Challenge turns this into a quick swipe game: mixed-order questions, difficulty that adapts to what you keep missing, and the harder facts coming round more often — exactly the schedule above, without you having to run it. The Daily Challenge is free and needs no account.

Your turn

Three to try — tap what you get.

7 × 8

6 × 9

12 × 12

Practice times tables free →

Once recall is automatic, the shortcuts in mental math tricks are the natural next step — nearly all of them assume the tables are instant.

×	3	4	6	7	8	9
3	9	12	18	21	24	27
4	12	16	24	28	32	36
6	18	24	36	42	48	54
7	21	28	42	49	56	63
8	24	32	48	56	64	72
9	27	36	54	63	72	81

×	3	4	6	7	8	9
3	9	12	18	21	24	27
4	12	16	24	28	32	36
6	18	24	36	42	48	54
7	21	28	42	49	56	63
8	24	32	48	56	64	72
9	27	36	54	63	72	81

×	3	4	6	7	8	9
3	9	12	18	21	24	27
4	12	16	24	28	32	36
6	18	24	36	42	48	54
7	21	28	42	49	56	63
8	24	32	48	56	64	72
9	27	36	54	63	72	81