We are asked to make an algebraic expression for the given situation. The key phrase is ... less than... This indicates that we should subtract two things.
... - ...
The two terms that we are subtracting are five and y. Since five comes first in the statement, it should be on the right-hand side of the subtraction.
y - five
We can complete our expression by changing the word five into its corresponding number, 5.
five less than y
y - 5
Note that this is only one of multiple ways to algebraically express the given statement.
