Recognize mahjong Tiles

This article talks about the mahjong tiles. There are 136 commonly used tiles, as well as a few not commonly used ones. We focus on the former.

136 seems a lot, but they are easy to know. The 136 tiles have 34 kinds, each kind has 4 identical tiles. The 34 kinds include 4 suits: Bamboos, Dots, Characters, Dragons. The first 3 suits are numbered from 1 to 9, can be used to form sequences, triples, kongs. The dragon suit are not numbered, thus can form triples and kongs, but not sequences.

Bamboos

Below is the bamboo suit with number from 1 to 9. The number is the count of sticks in the tile. A bamboo tile reads "n bamboos". For example, "9 bamboos" is the last one in the picture. The Chinese way to pronounce it is "n tiao" or "n suo" where "tiao", "suo", means sticks.

The tiles are marked with number for ease of recognition. The marks do not exist in real mahjong tiles.

Dots

Below is the dot suit with number from 1 to 9. The number is the count of circles in the tile. A dot tile reads "n dots". For example, "9 dots" is the last one in the picture. The Chinese way to pronounce it is "n bing" where "bing" means circle.

Characters

Below is the character suit with number from 1 to 9. The number is the first Chinese in the tile (the second character pronounces wan, means 10 thousand). A character tile reads "n characters". For example, "9 characters" is the last one in the picture. The chinese way to pronounce it is "n wan".

Dragons

There are 7 dragon tiles, 4 of which are called winds, the rest 3 are just dragons.

Winds tiles - east, south, west, north - are below. In Chinese, they pronounce "dong", "nan", "xi", "bei".

dragon tiles - white, green, red - dragon. People also call them white board, fortune, red character etc. In Chinese, they pronounce "baiban", "facai", "hongzhong", means white board, fortune, center.

Conclusion

There are total 9 kind of bamboo tiles, 9 kind of dot tiles, 9 kind of character tiles, 7 kind dragon tiles. Sum up, there are 34 kinds of tiles. In a mahjong tile set, each kind has 4 tiles, that is 136 tiles in total.

Congratulation, you now know the mahjong tiles. Next, we are going to talk about common concepts of mahjong game. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.