How to Remember the Asian Mahjong Character Tiles Without Numbers
The suit that hangs most players up when they try to play on mahjong sets without the Arabic numbers is the character tiles. Also known as the ten thousands, these tiles feature the character 萬 (wàn), which means 10,000. Each tile also has a character ranging from one to nine.
If you ever want to play mahjong on a cool set not normally meant for the Western world (looking at you, Hello Kitty and My Melody McDonald's mahjong set), then you're going to need to learn how to read the tiles without the numbers on them!
Here's my guide to getting you to mahjong character tile reading greatness!
Numbers 1–3 (一, 二, 三)
These are going to be your friendliest tiles in the character suit. You can identify them by the number of brushstrokes in black on the tile.
For one line, it is one!
For two lines, it is two!
For three lines, it is three!
Number 4 (四)
This will also be an easier one to remember. It is a box with four sides. Other times it will be more identifiable as a rectangle with four lines that are connected. For me, I find four easily by looking for a rectangle/box shape. Both rectangles and boxes have four sides. Notice even on the super stylized set on the far right, you can still identify the box shape.
Number 5 (五)
Five is the start of interesting character tiles to remember. To me, five is a hot mess. It has the "messiest" or most complicated symbol. Sometimes the font will be very thick and this looks "messy" like our leftmost tiles in the photo — in fact, some sets like those two use 伍, a fancier formal version of five, which is even messier! Other times the five will be neatly drawn like the tiles in the middle of the photo. Luckily, five is a great number because of its flexibility in mahjong — it works with so many numbers — so in this case a mess is totally acceptable!
In the scenario when you can clearly see the brushstrokes, you can actually see it is 3 horizontal lines + 2 vertical lines = 5 lines.
Number 6 (六)
Six to me is a running man. (This will come into play with seven later.) He is six feet tall!
For others, they see six as a star. Six and Star both start with "S" so that method works, too!
Number 7 (七)
Seven can be interesting depending on the tile font. To me, if six is a six foot tall man, seven is a refined and more feminine shape so obviously she is the next sequential number. Cue the now-old 6, 7 joke.
Another way to remember seven is that the symbol is an upside-down 7 or just an "X" or "T" shape.
Number 8 (八)
Now, if seven is a more classy lady shape then 8 is her partner. He looks like a more edited version of seven, but with only the bottom half of the symbol.
An even easier way to remember 8 is that when you phonetically say the word "EIGHT" it sounds like "ATE" as in "She ate an apple." The word "Ate" starts with the letter "A" and that is what the symbol for 8 looks like!
If you're on a Japanese language journey, then you'll recognize 8 as "Ha" in katakana. It is the first character in hachi, which is 8. I remember Ha for Hachiko, the famous dog who has a statue in Shibuya! The symbol for 8 looks like a pointy dog ear.
An even simpler mnemonic to remember is that 8 looks like a mountain.
Number 9 (九)
If you can write in cursive, you'll know that a lowercase "n" looks eerily similar to the symbol for 9. Just don't get it confused with a cursive R. If you do, "Ryan likes 9" as a sentence can help.
If you're familiar with Japanese, 9 looks like a K for kyuu (nine in Japanese).
If you're a Sailor Moon fan, you'll recognize the nine in Sailor Saturn's symbol because of the Mistress 9 connection.
And that's it!
I hope this helps in your quest to mahjong greatness. If you want to stick with tiles with numbers, that is totally fine. Our automatic tables will always have tiles with numbers on them when you come play at the studio!
