18 times 19 is 342 — with the shortcut, the division facts and a drill to make it stick
18 × 19 = 342. That is the short answer, and it is the same answer whichever way round you write the two numbers. Below is where 342 comes from, the shortcut that gets you there without counting, the division facts that travel with it, and the fastest way to move it from "I can work it out" to "I just know it".
18 × 19 = 342. Said out loud in the way most classrooms say it: Eighteen nineteens are three hundred and forty-two.
Multiplying is repeated addition, so 18 × 19 is eighteen nineteens added together, or equally nineteen eighteens added together. Both routes land on 342.
Written the other way round the answer does not change. 19 × 18 = 342 as well, because multiplication is commutative — the order of the two factors never affects the product. That halves how many facts you actually have to learn: get 18 × 19 and you have 19 × 18 for free.
Nineteen is one short of twenty. Twenty eighteens are 360, take one eighteen back and you are left with 342.
Because one of the factors is even, the answer has to be even. 342 is, so the parity check passes.
342 is a multiple of nine — its digits add to 9, which is itself a multiple of nine.
Every multiplication fact comes with a division fact on its back. These four all say the same thing about 18, 19 and 342: 18 × 19 = 342; 19 × 18 = 342; 342 ÷ 18 = 19; 342 ÷ 19 = 18.
Learning them as one family rather than four separate things is the single biggest shortcut in times-table practice. If you can answer "342 divided by 18" as fast as you can answer "18 times 19", the fact is genuinely learned rather than just recognised.
In the 18 times table, 342 is the nineteenth step: 18, 36, 54, 72, 90, 108, 126, 144, 162, 180, 198, 216, 234, 252, 270, 288, 306, 324, 342.
In the 19 times table it is the eighteenth step instead: 19, 38, 57, 76, 95, 114, 133, 152, 171, 190, 209, 228, 247, 266, 285, 304, 323, 342.
Seeing the same number arrive from two directions is what makes it stick. 342 is a landmark in both rows, so whichever table you are drilling you meet it again.
18 × 18 = 324, 18 × 20 = 360, 17 × 19 = 323, 19 × 19 = 361. Those are the answers people most often give by accident when they are a beat too quick.
The gap between neighbours is worth knowing on its own: each extra eighteen adds 18 to the running total, and each extra nineteen adds 19. So if 18 × 19 = 342 is solid, you can reach 18 × 20 by adding 18 rather than starting again.
Recognising a fact and recalling it under time pressure are different skills. A fact you can work out in four seconds still costs you four seconds every time it appears inside a longer calculation.
Short daily bursts beat long sessions: a 60-second drill every day will fix a table faster than one twenty-minute sitting a week. Mix the fact you are learning in among ones you already know so recall is being tested, not the order of a list.
18 times 19 is 342. In words, eighteen nineteens are three hundred and forty-two.
19 times 18 is also 342. Swapping the two factors never changes the answer, so 19 × 18 and 18 × 19 both come to 342.
342 ÷ 18 = 19, because 18 × 19 = 342. The matching fact is 342 ÷ 19 = 18.
Nineteen is one short of twenty. Twenty eighteens are 360, take one eighteen back and you are left with 342.
Yes. 342 is the nineteenth number in the 18 times table, and the eighteenth number in the 19 times table.
Every multiplication fact from 2 × 2 to 20 × 20 has its own page here, and the full grid is on the multiplication chart.