The study used a descriptive-comparative approach, where the grade 4 pupils performance in mathematics word problems written in their mother tongue and English were compared. The participants were n = 100, and only those who had grades below 79 had a description of being fairly satisfactory. The performance of the pupils in word problems written in their mother tongue was approaching proficiency, while word problems written in English were only developing. Thus, it found that the differences between each group were significant. This further explains, based on their respective means, that pupils perform better in mathematics when the word problem is written in their mother tongue. It was then suggested that, despite the fact that the mother tongue is taught only from grades 1 to 3, the teaching of mathematics through these mediums is recommended, especially since the competencies covered in this topic are quite difficult and need to be understood very well to enrich fundamentals in the subject.