I understand that 打牌 can mean playing mahjong or playing cards but I'm having trouble working out which one it is. I know nothing about cards or mahjong. The sentences related to 打牌 so far is: -洗牌 (shuffle) -Someone inviting another person the play by asking: 不玩两把? -轮到他摸牌的时候 (the words 摸牌 appear a lot) -快速的整理了一下牌,抽了一张扔了出去,出声:“三条。” Can anyone help work out whether they are playing mahjong or cards? And what is the meaning of 玩两把 and 三条 Thank you!
玩两把 = play a pair of pieces/things(depends on what its refering to) 三条 = 3 pieces/things(depends on what its refering to) don't know if its talking about cards or majong either, maybe search up the rules for majong and find out if there ar similarities between the dialouge and how you play?
Ah nevermind, only just read it again and discovered that he tossed out a '张' which usually refers to piece of paper.
I'd wager on cards (ba-dum-tss) because I think the counter for mahjong tiles is '块' though there's no guarantee the author knew. Are there any other clues?
I was thinking that might be playing the poker game tractor 拖拉机 (https://baike.baidu.com/item/拖拉机/9620346) since they need four players and 两把 could refer to using 2 decks but the counter for decks is 副. Was kind of hoping that 玩两把 was a common set phrase which would magically explain everything. I'm going to assume it's cards and translate the vaguely translate 两把 and 三条. Thanks guys for all your help!
This is definitely mahjong because of the terminology. 两把 is play two rounds. 三条 is one of the tiles.
Thank you so much! Feel like I'm learning heaps of random miscellaneous (useless) knowledge every time I translate.
You do know mahjong is played by four people right? So when one person leaves, it becomes a table of 3 lacking 1. Which indicates that they have no means to continue playing. No idea what 牌桌上 is unless there's more to it.. these words just mean tile on (top of) table. 摸牌打牌 basically means to draw a tile and discard a tile (out from your hand)
Most of the clues lead to mahjong, but it really bothers me that the author used "张" because as someone mentioned earlier, it's for cards (or pieces of paper). It ...unless they were playing with mahjong playing cards? XD Some more misc. information - there are variations of mahjong for three people to play (with special rules) but it's uncommon in China (more popular in Japan, Korea etc). 牌桌 refers to the table that they are playing on. 牌 usually means cards, but the tiles in mahjong are also called 牌. There are tables specially designed for playing mahjong, although you could technically play on any table. (This is similar to 饭桌 which is "dining table", or a table that is usually specifically used for eating.)