At school, I was really good at calculations. I don´t know if this is something I can proud of but I was quite good at it and once won the second prize in the class. The award was…. I got my desk at the very back of the class room, sweet.

A few days ago, I´ve found this. "How do Japanese multiply?"

"No way …" was my first reaction. 

First, have a look.

To be honest, I´d never seen nor heard about this way. Am I so away from education scene since I have little contact with kids or people who have school kids? First I thought, "No, this isn´t how Japanese do multiply" then, I started looking around. Well, I´ve found sevral videos presenting as a Japanese way of multiplying. But as I was searching, it seems like this is an ancient Indian way.

Good thing about this way is, you don´t need to know the multiplication table. Do you remember the one we had to remember at primary school; 1×1=1, 1×2=2…. yes, that one.

So, this is the most common way of multiplication. This way is called Hissan (筆算) in Japanese and I think this is very quick and practical.

Do you do the same way?

Oh, before I go, here is the kuku song (九九のうた/ the maltiplication song) :