Japanese Math Homework Words: An English Guide for Parents

Your child brings home a math worksheet. You can see the numbers, but the instructions are in Japanese — and you can't tell whether it asks them to calculate, explain, or draw something.

The good news: Japanese math worksheets reuse a small set of phrases. Once you know about twenty of them, you can usually tell what the question wants, even if you can't read the rest.

This guide lists the words that come up most, grade by grade, with the Japanese, the reading, and what it means.

First, the instruction phrases

These appear at the start or end of almost every question. They tell your child what to do.

Two things that surprise foreign parents

1. 式（しき）and 答え（こたえ）are marked separately. Japanese teachers usually want the number sentence (for example 12 × 3 = 36) written on one line labeled 式, and the final answer on another line labeled 答え. A correct answer with no 式 can lose points.

2. ア・イ・ウ are the Japanese "A, B, C". Multiple-choice options are labeled ア, イ, ウ, エ (a, i, u, e). "記号で答えなさい" means "answer with ア, イ, ウ or エ."

Elementary school, grades 1–3

九九（くく） deserves a special note. Children in 2nd grade memorize the times tables by reciting them aloud in a fixed rhythm (いんいちがいち, "one one is one"…), and often bring home a card for a parent to sign after listening. You don't need to understand the words — you can check the numbers.

Elementary school, grades 4–6

One phrase that confuses almost everyone:

小数第二位を四捨五入しなさい（しょうすう だいにいを ししゃごにゅう しなさい）

This means "round at the second decimal place" — so the answer has one decimal place (2.46 → 2.5). It's easy to read it as "round to two decimal places," which gives the wrong answer.

Junior high school (grades 7–9)

For example, a typical 8th-grade question reads:

次の一次関数の傾きと切片を答えなさい。y = −3x + 5

"Give the slope and the y-intercept of this linear function." The answer is slope −3, y-intercept 5.

How to help when you can't read the question

1. Find the instruction phrase first. Look at the end of the sentence for 〜なさい. The table at the top tells you whether it's asking to calculate, find, explain or choose.
2. Check for 式 and 答え. If the worksheet has two blank lines, your child needs both.
3. Let your child explain it to you in English. Explaining is one of the best ways to learn — and it shows you where they're stuck.
4. Keep the Japanese word next to the English one. Tests are in Japanese. If your child only learns "slope," they won't recognize 傾き on the test. Write both: slope（傾き）.

A photo-translation app can help with the sentence, but it often mistranslates math terms (傾き can come out as "tilt" or "lean"). The tables above use the terms Japanese textbooks actually mean.

Summary

• Japanese math worksheets reuse a small set of instruction phrases — learn those first
• 式 (the working) and 答え (the answer) are usually graded separately
• ア・イ・ウ・エ are the multiple-choice letters
• "小数第二位を四捨五入" means the answer has one decimal place
• Always keep the Japanese term next to the English one, because tests are in Japanese

If your child is stuck on a specific problem, you can paste it into Manavi in Japanese and ask in English. The AI tutor translates the question, explains it step by step in English, and keeps the Japanese terms your child will see on the test.