Mahjong tiles explained

Learn the 42 faces and you can read any hand. Here is how they add up to a full set, followed by each group in turn with the names you will hear at the table.

Dots

The easiest suit: count the circles. Dots are also called circles, coins or wheels, and in Chinese 筒 tǒng or 餅 bǐng, a round cake. The suit began as coins in older Chinese card games, which is why each dot looks like a coin with a hole in the middle. The 1 of dots is a single large coin, usually decorated.

Bamboo

Count the sticks. American players call them bams; in Chinese they are 條 tiáo, strips, or 索 suǒ, strings, because they started out as strings of coins. The one exception is the 1 of bamboo, which shows a bird instead of a single stick. The bird is usually a sparrow, and an old name for the whole game, 麻雀, means sparrow.

Characters

Each character tile has two parts. The top is a Chinese numeral from 1 to 9. The bottom, in red, is 萬 wàn, ten thousand, so a tile reads “three ten-thousands”. Americans call them craks. You only need to learn the nine numerals, and many sets add a small Arabic number in the corner to help.

One shortcut: 1, 2 and 3 are simply one, two and three horizontal strokes. Of the rest, 四 (4) is the box, 八 (8) looks like two legs spreading apart, and 九 (9) has a hook at the bottom right.

Winds

Four winds, four copies of each. They have no numbers and can only form pungs and kongs, never runs. Each player's seat is also named after a wind, and a pung of your own seat's wind is worth extra.

A tip for East and North, the two that beginners mix up most: East 東 is the one with a sun inside a tree, and North 北 is the one that looks like two people sitting back to back.

Dragons

Three dragons, four copies of each. Despite the name, none of them shows a dragon.

• Red dragon, 中 zhōng, “middle”. Usually printed in red.

• Green dragon, 發 fā, from a word for getting rich. Usually printed in green.

• White dragon, 白 bái. Either a blank tile or a framed rectangle, often blue. American players call it soap.

Winds and dragons together are called honor tiles. Hands made only of honors, or of one suit plus honors, score well in most styles.

Flowers and seasons

The eight bonus tiles come one of each. They are never part of a winning hand: draw one, place it face up beside you, and take a replacement. In scoring games they add points, especially a bonus tile whose number matches your seat (East 1, South 2, West 3, North 4).

In mahjong solitaire the rule is different: any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season.

Extra tiles in American sets

American sets add jokers, usually eight, which can stand in for a tile in a set of three or more. Some sets also include blank spares for replacing lost tiles. Japanese sets go the other way and leave out the flowers and seasons, for 136 tiles.

Tiles that are easy to confuse

• 2 of dots and 2 of bamboo: circles versus sticks. Say the suit aloud when you discard until it becomes automatic.

• 1 of bamboo and a flower: the bird is a suit tile with three siblings. A flower has a number in the corner and a single Chinese character.

• White dragon and a spare: in sets with a blank white dragon, check the box for spares before you start so they do not end up in play.

• 6, 7, 8 and 9 of bamboo: count in rows. On our tiles the 6 is two rows of three, the 7 adds a single red stick on top, the 8 has slanted sticks in two rows of four, and the 9 is three rows of three. Other sets vary slightly, but the counts never change.