There are 144 boxes in a 12 by 12 multiplication grid and almost nobody needs to memorise 144 things. Strip out the ones, the twos, the fives, the tens, the elevens up to nine, the squares and the mirror-image half of the grid, and what is left is fewer than twenty facts. That is the whole trick, and it is why chanting rows from the beginning is such a poor use of time. This is the order worth learning them in, the anchors that make every other fact one step away, and how to find the handful that are actually costing you.
Reciting 'three, six, nine, twelve' out loud feels like learning, and for the first few days it is. The problem is what it teaches: the order of a list. Each answer is cued by the one before it, so the whole row runs fluently while any single fact pulled out on its own still takes a second or two to find.
Real arithmetic never asks for facts in order. It asks for 7 × 8 in the middle of something else, with no run-up. If the only route to that answer is starting at 7 and counting up, the fact is not learned — it is being recalculated every time, and it is costing you the attention you needed for the larger problem.
The test is simple. Ask for six facts from one row in a random order and time each one. Anything over about two seconds is not yet learned, however smoothly the row recites. The Times Table Check does exactly this and hands you the list.
Four rows come almost free, and once they are solid every other fact in the grid is one addition or one subtraction away from one of them.
The 1 times table is the identity — every number stays as it is. There is nothing to learn.
The 2 times table is doubling. If you can double, you already know the whole row, and you also know that every answer in it is even.
The 5 times table is half of the ten times table. Ten sevens are 70, so five sevens are 35. Every answer ends in 5 or 0, alternating.
The 10 times table shifts every digit one place left, which on a whole number looks like adding a zero.
From those four, the rest is arithmetic rather than memory. The 4s are the 2s doubled. The 3s are the 2s plus one more lot. The 9s are the 10s minus one lot. The 6s are the 5s plus one more lot. The 8s are the 4s doubled, or the 2s doubled twice.
Building from an anchor is slower than recall the first fifty times and faster than calculating from scratch every time after that. Repetition turns the route into the answer.
Numerical order wastes effort, because it spends the same time on the 2 row as on the 7 row. This order goes easiest-first, and each step leans on the one before it.
1, 2, 5, 10 — the anchors. Nothing here needs memorising, only noticing.
4 — double the 2s. 4 × 7 is 14 doubled, which is 28.
3 — the 2s plus one more lot. 3 × 7 is 14 + 7 = 21.
9 — the 10s minus one lot, and the digits of every answer up to 9 × 10 add to nine. The 9 times table has the most structure of any row.
11 — up to 9, the digit written twice. From 10 upwards it is 10 × n plus n.
6, 7, 8 — the hard middle, and the only rows that genuinely need drilling.
12 — 10 × n plus 2 × n. Worth knowing but never worth memorising as a separate row.
By the time you reach the 6s, 7s and 8s, most of those facts are already covered. 6 × 2, 6 × 5, 6 × 9, 6 × 10, 6 × 11 all come from earlier steps. What is left across all three rows is a small set.
Cancel the commutative duplicates — 7 × 8 and 8 × 7 are one fact — and strip out everything an anchor already covers, and the genuinely hard part of the 12 by 12 grid comes down to this:
3 × 7 = 21, 3 × 8 = 24, 3 × 12 = 36
4 × 6 = 24, 4 × 7 = 28, 4 × 8 = 32, 4 × 12 = 48
6 × 6 = 36, 6 × 7 = 42, 6 × 8 = 48, 6 × 12 = 72
7 × 7 = 49, 7 × 8 = 56, 7 × 12 = 84
8 × 8 = 64, 8 × 12 = 96
That is around fifteen facts. Fifteen things can be learned properly in a fortnight of one-minute sessions, which is a very different proposition from 'learn your times tables'.
Each of those has a page here with its own shortcut, the division facts that travel with it and the facts either side that get answered by mistake. 7 × 8 = 56 is the one most people name as the hardest, and it has the neatest mnemonic in the grid: the digits run 5, 6, 7, 8.
Short and daily beats long and weekly
What moves a fact from recognised to recalled is the number of times it is retrieved, not the number of minutes spent looking at it. Sixty seconds a day will beat one twenty-minute session a week, and it is far easier to keep going.
Shuffle, always
If the questions arrive in order, the previous answer does the work. Every drill here shuffles for that reason — Times Tables Game mixes a row, Times Table Grid fills a grid in scrambled order, and Missing Factor asks the same facts backwards.
Practise the reverse direction too
Division questions arrive as 'what times 8 makes 56', not as '56 ÷ 8'. A fact you can only answer forwards is half learned, and the backwards direction is the one that makes dividing and cancelling fractions quick.
Mix the new fact among ones you know
Drilling only the hard facts means every question is hard, which is demoralising and also less effective. Mixing a new fact into a run of familiar ones tests recall rather than endurance.
Write it down once a fortnight
A printable worksheet with an answer key gives you a record. Three dated sheets a fortnight apart show progress far more honestly than any single score.
Plenty of adults never got the tables to automatic recall and have worked around it ever since, usually without realising how much it costs. Every mental calculation, every quick estimate, every fraction and every percentage runs through the same small set of facts.
The good news is that the set is small and adults learn it faster than children do, because the structure — doubling, anchors, the commutative shortcut — can be explained in one sitting rather than discovered. What takes a school year takes an adult a few weeks of one-minute drills.
Start with the Times Table Check to find out which facts are actually slow. Most people find it is four or five, not forty.
Get the 1, 2, 5 and 10 anchors solid first, then reach every other fact by adding or subtracting one lot. Drill shuffled rather than in order, for about a minute a day, and check each answer immediately.
1, 2, 5 and 10 first, then 4 (double the 2s), 3 (the 2s plus one more), 9 (the 10s minus one) and 11. Leave 6, 7 and 8 until last — they are the only rows that genuinely need drilling.
The 7 row, with 6 and 8 close behind. They have no digit pattern to lean on, so unlike the 9s or the 11s they cannot be reconstructed from a rule and have to be known.
Fewer than twenty that need memorising. A 12 by 12 grid has 144 boxes, but half are mirror images, and the 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 11s follow rules rather than needing recall.
With daily one-minute shuffled drilling, a single row typically becomes automatic in a couple of weeks. The hard middle of the grid — around fifteen facts — takes most people a month or two.
Chanting builds the order of a list rather than the facts themselves. It is fine as a starting point, but the facts only become usable once they can be answered out of order, one at a time.
The grid is smaller than it looks. Four anchors, a handful of rules and about fifteen facts that need real drilling. Find yours with the [Times Table Check](/tools/times-table-check), drill them shuffled for a minute a day on [Times Table Grid](/games/times-table-grid), and check the progress with a [printable sheet](/tools/math-worksheet) a fortnight later.