Every term used on this site, in English and Chinese, with pinyin. Tiles and discards are announced in Chinese at a real table, so the pinyin column is the one worth learning first.
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draw | 摸牌 | mō pái | Take a tile from the wall. |
| Discard | 打牌 | dǎ pái | Throw a tile face-up into your discard pool. |
| Pong | 碰 | pèng | Claim a discard to make three identical tiles, exposed. |
| Kong | 杠 | gàng | Four identical tiles. Three variants, all scored differently. |
| Exposed kong | 直杠 | zhí gàng | Kong made by claiming a discarded 4th tile; the discarder pays 2. |
| Concealed kong | 暗杠 | àn gàng | Kong held entirely in your own hand; every opponent pays 2. |
| Added kong | 补杠 | bǔ gàng | Adding a drawn 4th tile to your own exposed pong; each opponent pays 1. |
| Win | 胡 | hú | Complete a legal hand. |
| Self-drawn win | 自摸 | zì mō | Win on a tile you drew yourself. Three players pay instead of one. |
| Declare missing suit | 定缺 | dìng quē | Name one suit you will discard entirely this round. Mandatory, public, before the first discard. |
| Chow | 吃 | chī | Claiming a discard to complete a run. Not used in Sichuan mahjong — listed here so you know what is missing. |
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pair | 将 | jiàng | The two identical tiles that complete a hand. |
| Triplet | 刻子 | kè zi | Three identical tiles, in hand or exposed. |
| Run | 顺子 | shùn zi | Three consecutive tiles in one suit. |
| Four of a kind | 根 | gēn | Holding all four copies of a tile. Worth +1 fan each — except in seven-pairs hands, where 龙七对 already pays for it. |
| Seven pairs | 七对 | qī duì | Seven distinct pairs, no melds exposed. Worth 4, replacing the base win. |
| Dragon seven pairs | 龙七对 | lóng qī duì | Seven pairs containing a four-of-a-kind. Worth 8 in total. |
| All triplets | 大对子 | dà duì zi | Every set is a triplet or kong — no runs. Worth 3. Exposed pongs and kongs still count. Known as 碰碰胡 outside Sichuan. |
| Golden hook | 金钩钓 | jīn gōu diào | All four sets exposed as pongs or kongs, leaving just a pair in hand waiting on one tile. Worth 3. |
| All one suit | 清一色 | qīng yī sè | Every tile in one suit. +4 — or already inside one of the pure 清 packages (清对 8, 清七对 16, 清龙七对 32). The big money pattern. |
| Terminals everywhere | 带幺九 | dài yāo jiǔ | Every set and the pair contains a 1 or a 9. +2. |
| No terminals at all | 断幺九 | duàn yāo jiǔ | No 1s or 9s anywhere. A national-standard / Japanese pattern, not a Sichuan one — shipped here as a switch, off by default. |
| All kongs | 十八罗汉 | shí bā luó hàn | All four melds are kongs — 18 tiles. Worth 16, and rarer than you will ever see. Distinct from 金钩钓, which is four exposed melds of any kind with a single-tile wait. |
| Robbing the kong | 抢杠胡 | qiǎng gàng hú | Winning on the fourth tile someone was adding to their pong. The kong is void, no kong money is paid, and you get +1. |
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready | 下叫 | xià jiào | One tile away from winning. This is what a Sichuan table actually says; 听牌 is the standard-Mandarin equivalent you will see in books. |
| Wait | 听张 | tīng zhāng | The specific tile(s) that would complete your hand. |
| Distance to ready | 差几张下叫 | chà jǐ zhāng xià jiào | How many tiles you are still away from ready. A Sichuan player says "still 2 tiles from 下叫"; 向听 is a Japanese-mahjong loanword and is not used at a Sichuan table. |
| Improving tiles | 进张 | jìn zhāng | The tiles that would move you one step closer. More improving tiles = better hand. |
| Discard pool | 牌河 | pái hé | The face-up piles of discards in front of each player — public information. |
| Wall | 牌墙 | pái qiáng | The undealt tiles. When it empties, the round settles. |
| Your hand | 手牌 | shǒu pái | The tiles you are holding. |
| Exposed melds | 副露 | fù lù | Pongs and kongs laid face-up in front of you. |
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fan | 番 | fān | The pattern bonus value of a hand. Bonuses stack. |
| Points | 分 | fēn | What actually changes hands: fan × base value. |
| Base value | 底分 | dǐ fēn | The multiplier applied to fan. Set to 1 on this site. |
| Kong blossom | 杠上花 | gàng shàng huā | Self-drawn win on the replacement tile drawn after a kong. +1. |
| Kong cannon | 杠上炮 | gàng shàng pào | Winning off the tile someone was forced to discard right after their kong. +1. |
| Last tile | 海底 | hǎi dǐ | A win on the very last tile in the wall. +1. |
| Ready check | 查叫 | chá jiào | Wall ran out: players who are not ready pay each ready player the fan value of their best wait. Often written 查大叫. |
| Flower pig | 查花猪 | chá huā zhū | Wall ran out: anyone still holding their declared missing suit pays 16 to each clean player. |
| Tax refund | 退税 | tuì shuì | Kong money collected by a player who never wins is handed back. |
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mahjong | 麻将 | má jiàng | The game. Tiles are 牌 (pái). |
| Sichuan mahjong | 四川麻将 / 川麻 | sì chuān má jiàng / chuān má | The variant taught on this site. Also just chuan ma. |
| Characters suit | 万 | wàn | "Ten thousand" — the money suit, ranks written as numerals. |
| Bamboo suit | 条 | tiáo | "Stick" — drawn as that many bamboo sticks. |
| Dots suit | 筒 | tǒng | "Barrel" — drawn as that many circles. |
| 1 of bamboo | 幺鸡 | yāo jī | Literally "little chicken" — the 1 of bamboo is drawn as a bird, not a stick. |
| Dealer | 庄家 | zhuāng jiā | The player who acts first. |
| Teahouse | 茶馆 | chá guǎn | Where Sichuan mahjong actually lives — the game is inseparable from teahouse culture. |
| Battle to the end | 血战到底 | xuè zhàn dào dǐ | The standard variant: after a win the round continues until three players have won. |
| Blood flows like a river | 血流成河 | xuè liú chéng hé | The extreme variant: winners keep playing and can win repeatedly. |
定缺 dìng quē (declare your missing suit) · 下叫 xià jiào (I'm ready) · 碰 pèng (pong) · 杠 gàng (kong) · 自摸 zì mō (self-drawn win) · 幺鸡 yāo jī (the 1 of bamboo). Learn those six and you can follow a table well enough to learn the rest by ear.