Quick answer
In English, mahjong is said mah-JONG, with the stress on the second syllable. The jong can start with the j of jog or the zh sound of the s in measure, and dictionaries give both. Mah Jongg with two g's is said the same way, since Merriam-Webster heads its entry mah-jongg. In Mandarin the game is májiàng.
Mahjong came into English from Chinese, so English speakers say it more than one way, and the American spelling Mah Jongg adds a g that makes people wonder whether it changes the sound. Here is what the dictionaries give, how the name is said in Mandarin and Cantonese, and when you say it out loud at the table.
How to say mahjong in English
Say it in two syllables, mah and jong, with the stress on the second, mah-JONG. The first syllable has the a of father, and jong has the o of hot, whichever way you say hot. Merriam-Webster also lists jong with the vowel of saw.
In the dictionaries' own symbols, Cambridge gives /ˌmɑːˈdʒɒŋ/ for British English and /ˌmɑːˈdʒɑːŋ/ for American English. Merriam-Webster, an American dictionary, also lists versions with the stress on the first syllable, MAH-jong.
Is it a j or a zh?
Both are in the dictionaries. Cambridge gives the j of jog for British and American English. Oxford Learner's Dictionaries give the j for British English and zh, the sound of the s in measure, for North American English. Merriam-Webster lists zh first and j second, and Wiktionary lists both sounds for the UK and the US.
So neither one is a mistake. The stress stays on jong either way.
Mah Jongg with two g's
The same way as mahjong. The double g is spelling, not sound. Merriam-Webster heads its entry mah-jongg, gives mahjong as a variant spelling, and lists one set of pronunciations for both, mah-ZHONG or mah-JONG. Wiktionary lists mah-jongg and mahjongg as alternative spellings of mahjong.
The second g goes back to the 1920s. Joseph Babcock trademarked the spelling Mah-Jongg for the sets he imported, and the National Mah Jongg League kept the double g when it formed in 1937. Our spelling guide covers where each spelling comes from.
How to say it in Chinese
In Mandarin the game is 麻將, or 麻将 in simplified characters, written májiàng in pinyin. The accent marks are the tones. Má rises and jiàng falls. Dictionaries trace the English word to Chinese but give different sources for it. Wiktionary gives this Mandarin name, and Oxford Learner's Dictionaries give a dialect form, ma-tsiang.
The older name is 麻雀, which means sparrow, and 麻將 is derived from it. In Mandarin 麻雀 is máquè. In Cantonese it is maa4 zoek3 in Jyutping romanization, or màh-jeuk in Yale romanization, and spellings such as mah cheuk are other ways of writing the same Cantonese word.
The two names divide by region. Southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Hokkien still call the game 麻雀, while Mandarin, Shanghainese and Sichuanese say 麻將. Our origins guide covers the sparrow name and where the game came from.
The name travelled with the game. In Japanese it is マージャン, mājan, and in Korean 마작, majak.
When you say it at the table
In the American game you say it when you win. When your fourteen tiles exactly match a hand on the card, you declare mahjong and the table checks the hand before anyone pays. You can also call a discarded tile for mahjong when it is the tile that completes your hand, and a call for mahjong takes priority over a call for a set.
Calling mahjong by mistake costs nothing on its own under the sanctioned tournament rules. What kills the hand is showing tiles on the false call, and our guide to dead hands covers the details.
Put it into practice
Reading about it is one thing. Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
Want the coach on call? The Club adds the coach for your own tiles and for each morning's hand, all 10 lessons, and every new NMJL card taught the week it lands, for $14.99 a month, cancel anytime. See what the Club includes
Knowing what to call the game is the start. The next step is reading a deal. Put a hand into the free read, and Mei, our AI coach, reads it tile by tile, says which direction it goes for and which tiles do nothing for it, and explains why.