Depends which province, city, suburb and village you are in. All of them have different ways of playing mahjong with lots of different rules. 

different way of pissing your life away b4 video games....   "ooooh  ,  the funny little pictographs match,,, I'm a winner!"

sorry,,,   neg. mood 2nite

Yeah, it's pretty easy.  It's basically Gin Rummy with dominoes.  And like Louis says, rules may vary.

Easy game - but as said, clarify rules first!!! Or you'll get stung!

Pick up a tile, see if you want to keep it. Discard a tile. You can take from the discards ONLY if it finishes a combination. If you take from the discards, then you have to show your combination (place those tiles face up). If you get your combination, you don't have to show it (bonus points). Some rules require you to show that you've got combinations by placing them face down on the table.

Combinations are either a run of 3 in the same 'suit' (not 4 or more!! Although, obviously, if you have a run of 6, that's 2x3!) or 3 of a kind. As there's 4 of each tile, if you get your hands on the 4th of that, yay - bonus points!

And, because of the number of tiles in your hand, you also need a final pair to win the game.

Points - based on a few things - like if you picked all the tiles yourself from the wall, rather than taking from the discard pile, or for having Dragons or Winds combinations. Relations to who started, and where you are in the cycle also have bearing. Here's a link: http://www.allmj.com/score.php

I know how to pronounce it correctly. 

In Jixain, Hebei, I had English book with lesson and 'Mah Jiang' in the middle of the English text.

I read sentence, and students followed me. When I had to say 'Mah Jiang', I pronounce it as 'letter by letter'. Students laugh! I didn't have clue what that is, except according to English text, it must be some kind of game, as 'play Mah Jiang....'

Chinese teacher couched me to proper pronunciation and things. I'm not sure, which Western board game is similar. I just know, how to say it properly