Daily Kanji
A drill covering the 1,026 kanji taught in school years 1-6, in both reading and writing. Each question is one kanji inside a short phrase.
Daily Math asks the whole-number addition, subtraction, multiplication and division taught in Japanese elementary school. That material is sorted into 42 kinds, which come to 9,417 problems in all. This page goes through what is in each of them.
Called simply "addition", 2 + 5 and 57 + 35 count as the same
problem. But what a child gets stuck on is usually not the size of the numbers - it is a
particular operation, such as carrying.
So the problems are divided two ways: by the operation involved (is there a carry or a borrow?) and by how large the numbers get. Divided like this, every answer records where the difficulty was, and the app can then ask more of the kinds you find hard.
In other words, the record does not say "weak at addition" - it says "weak at two-digit addition with a carry".
Five steps without a carry, and five steps with one. The steps are the same in both: single digits, then under 30, under 50, under 80, and under 100.
2 + 5
55 problems
12 + 15
55 problems
22 + 25
275 problems
32 + 35
825 problems
42 + 45
825 problems
7 + 5
45 problems
17 + 5
90 problems
27 + 15
279 problems
47 + 25
756 problems
57 + 35
729 problems
Carrying means making a group of ten. A child who can do 2 + 5 may still stop
at 7 + 5, so the two are kept apart and can be practised separately.
Sums such as 29 + 1 - one single-digit term, and an answer ending in zero - are
not asked. That exclusion is inherited from the Android app this was ported from.
As with addition: five steps without a borrow, and five steps with one.
7 - 5
55 problems
27 - 15
255 problems
37 - 25
475 problems
67 - 35
1125 problems
87 - 45
1025 problems
12 - 7
45 problems
22 - 17
90 problems
42 - 27
297 problems
72 - 47
783 problems
92 - 57
747 problems
One step does not line up with addition. The series with a borrow starts at "under 20" rather than at single digits - subtracting one single digit from another never requires a borrow in the first place.
By count this is the largest of the four groups, with 4,897 problems.
The times tables are kept as nine separate kinds, one per table. That way a gap such as "never gets the seven times table" shows up in the record.
1 × 2
9 problems
2 × 3
9 problems
3 × 2
9 problems
4 × 2
9 problems
5 × 2
9 problems
6 × 2
9 problems
7 × 2
9 problems
8 × 2
9 problems
9 × 2
9 problems
2 × 13
106 problems
13 × 2
106 problems
The last two involve a two-digit number, and only products below 100 are asked.
2 × 13 and 13 × 2 are counted separately: the answer is the same,
but the way a child works it out is not.
Multiplication and division have far fewer problems than addition and subtraction simply because there are only 81 times-table facts to begin with.
Nine kinds, one per divisor, plus two-digit by one-digit and two-digit by two-digit.
2 ÷ 1
9 problems
6 ÷ 2
9 problems
6 ÷ 3
9 problems
8 ÷ 4
9 problems
10 ÷ 5
9 problems
12 ÷ 6
9 problems
14 ÷ 7
9 problems
16 ÷ 8
9 problems
18 ÷ 9
9 problems
26 ÷ 2
106 problems
26 ÷ 13
106 problems
Nothing with a remainder is asked. Every division here comes out exactly. A division with a remainder has two numbers as its answer, which does not fit a screen where you enter a single number.
Besides plain problems such as 7 + 5, some are written as
□ + 5 = 12. The box can stand on either side.
This asks for the inverse: you look at an addition and think in subtraction. Memorising the answer is not enough, so the same fact gets checked from another direction.
These are left out when the app is choosing the questions for you. They call for a different kind of thinking, so they are kept for when you pick the kinds yourself.
Roughly how this maps onto Japanese elementary school.
The app does not gate problems by school year, though. You can pick the kinds you have been taught, or let the app decide where you are weak and weight the questions towards that.
No decimals or fractions, no word problems, no geometry, no unit conversion. This drill does one thing: whole-number arithmetic, practised until it comes quickly.
No answer ever reaches 100 either. The largest is 99, from 10 + 89.
You can try it right now. No sign-in needed.
For a walk-through with screenshots, see the full introduction.
The other two
Daily Kanji
A drill covering the 1,026 kanji taught in school years 1-6, in both reading and writing. Each question is one kanji inside a short phrase.
Daily Proverbs
A drill on 130 Japanese proverbs, asked three ways - fill in the blank, match a meaning, match a scene. The aim is understanding and use, not handwriting.
Each is published separately, and all are free to use. Back to the portal Privacy Policy Contact