Most “international” sites dealing with Japanese mahjong, or riichi mahjong, seem to be very fond of “translating” tile names and different hands. I’ll have none of that, because I think that “Lucky Dragon Tiles” sounds utterly stupid. Fair enough, “dora” doesn’t sound much better, but at least I know what it is. Besides, if you’re used to the Japanese names, you’re bound to find the sites and columns as confusing as I do. Or, did.
Tiles
- Cracks, Numbers, Grands, Craks, Characters, Wan — man-zu / 萬子 / man
- Balls, Dots, Circles, Coins, Buckets, Units — pin-zu / 筒子 / pin
- Bamboo, Sticks, Bams, Hundreds — sou-zu / 索子 / sou
- Lucky Tile, Lucky Dragon Tile — dora / ドラ
- Hidden Lucky Tile – reverse dora / 裏ドラ / ura-dora
- Ends, Chars, Honours, Characters — Honours / 字牌 / ju-hai
- Terminals — Don’t know if there’s a name for this, actually.
- Simples, Middles — Simples / 中張牌 / chun-chan-pai
- Winds
- East - 東 / Ton
- South – 南 / Nan
- West – 西 / Shaa
- North – 北 / Pei
- Colours, Element, Dragons
- White – 白 / Haku
- Green – 発 / Hatsu
- Red – 中 / Chun
Hands
- Hand point/s — han / 翻
- Melds — mentsu / 面子
- Seq, Sequence, Runs — shuntsu / 順子
- Tri, triple, three-of-a-kind, Sets — pon / 刻子 / Koutsu
- Quad, quadruple, four-of-a-kind — kan / 槓子 / kantsu
- Round Wind, Prevailing Wind — Usually just referred to as whatever wind it is / 場風 / bakaze
- Position Wind, Seat Wind — 門風 / menfon — self wind / 自風 / tsufon
- Guest Winds — 客風 / ota-kaze
- Double Wind¹ — ダブ風 / renhoupai, dabu-kaze
1 Yaku Hands – 一飜
- Reach — riichi / 立直
- Fully Concealed Hand — menzen tsumo / 門前清模和
- All Simples – tanyao / 断幺
- Peace — tan pin / pinfu / 平和
- Pure Double Chow — Iipeikou / 一盃口
- Mixed Triple Chow, Three suits same sequence — San shoku doujun / 三色同順
- Pure Straight, One breath dragon — Itsuu / 一気通貫
- Dragon Pung — yakuhai / 役牌
- Seat/Prevalent WInd — fanpai / 翻牌
- Robbing a Kong, Flower on the Mountain — rin shan kai hou / 嶺上開花
- Bottom of the Sea / Scooping the Moon from the Sea / Scooping the fish from the rivers² — haitei / 海底撈月 / haidei raoyue / haitei / 河底撈魚 / houdei raoyui
- 3 Coloured Runs, Outside Hand, Dirty Ends — Chanta / 混全帯幺九
2 Yaku Hands – 二飜
- Seven Pairs — chiitoitsu / 七対子 / にこにこ / niconico
- Triple Pung — San shoku dokou / 三色小同刻
- Three Concealed Pungs — San ankou / 三暗刻
- Three Kongs — san kan tsu / 三槓子
- All Pungs — Toi-toi / 対々和 / toitoihou
- Half Flush, Dirty one-suiter — Honitsu / 混一色
- Little Three Dragons — Shou sangen / 小三元
- All Terminals and Honours — Honrouto / 混老頭
- Terminals in All Sets — Junchan taiyai / 純全帯幺九 / junchan
3 Yaku Hands – 三飜
- Twice Pure Double Chow — Ryan peikou / 二盃口
5 Yaku Hands – 六飜
- Full Flush — Chinitsu / 清一色
- End Discards — Nagashi Mangan / 流し満貫
Limit Hands – At a later date.
Other
Note that this list is far from complete. Indeed, I’m usually too lazy to finish anything. Mahjong’s terminology is, to say the least, very large.
- ¹ Some explanation is necessary: “Double Wind” (I’ve honestly never heard of this, although the concept itself is hardly new to me) is when the Prevailing Wind and Seat Wind is the same – so it obviously only applies to one person at any time (ie, South during South Wind)
- ² Haitei has two different names depending on how you win it: if you draw it as the last legal tile in the wall (and go out on it), it’s haidei raoyue (海底撈月), but if you go out on the last discard of the round it’s houdei raoyui (河底撈魚) instead. I hope that makes sense.
Filed under: scoring, Uncategorized | Tagged: language |
#mahjong 
Nice blog, hope you continue it. It’s really nice to see new riichi sites after so many years of the same ones.
Small translation corrections:
字牌 is jihai, not juhai
Chanta is missing. That’s all sets contain terminals or jihai. You may be confusing it with junchan, which is all sets contain terminals (and no jihai)
junchan’s long form is junchan-taiyaochuu, not taiyai and should belong in the 3 yaku sections (jt’s 2 if open). (The yo in junchan-taiyaochuu is the same as in tanyao since they’re referring to the same thing)
Chinitsu is a 6 yaku hand and 5 if open. (eg a closed chinitsu hand with no other yakus is always a haneman)
The short forms for “last tile” are haitei and houtei. That’s a t and not a d.
Probably not so important if you’re not playing in Japan, but I thought I’d point these little things out. There may be stuff I’ve missed.
Ah, sorry for the late response – I’ve been up to no good and actually forgot about this list for a while.
A few of the entries feature mistranslations and/or incorrect facts. I’ve been meaning to clean it up, but since it’s in such a state of chaos already I might just redo the whole thing.
Chanta is “hon chanta yaochuu”, or “Dirty Ends-full” (I hate the english names), junchan is – as you said – junchan-taiyaochuu. The difference is that chanta allows honours, where junchan doesn’t. Both contains “chows.”
As for whether to go with t or d – that’s more a personal choice than anything. The rules for converting kanji to romaji aren’t very well specified (especially since there are two sets, and both are as “official” as they get), so I just went with what I figured would work. You’re entirely right when it comes to jihai though – although I’d probably translate it “ji pai.”