Learning a new language that’s not your mother tongue can be real daunting. A school in Chengdu, China, has made national news headlines for its creative way of teaching its students English with mahjong tiles.

　　学习一种非母语的语言真的是一件令人望而生畏的事情。但是成都一所学校独辟蹊径，非常有创意地用麻将牌来教学生学习英语，此举迅速在中国引起了轰动。

　　Mahjong is a traditional Chinese card game that’s similar to the Western’s world rummy. It is usually played with four players and involves 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols.

　　麻将是中国一种传统的棋牌类游戏，和西方国家流行的拉米牌很相似。一般是四个人一起打麻将，共有144张牌，牌面上印有中国字和各种符号。

　　Many Chinese children pick up on how to play mahjong from their parents from a young age, simply by observing the adults playing rounds of the game.

　　仅仅通过观察他们的父母是如何打牌的，许多中国孩子在很小的时候就学会了打麻将。

　　But the mahjong sets used at Jitou Middle School are different and so is the objective.

　　但是机投中学的麻将牌看起来和普通的麻将不一样，它们的作用也不一样。

　　Students play mahjong with modified tiles at Jitou Middle School in Chengdu City, the capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The game is usually played by four people with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. School headmaster Tian Jingyun has placed English letters on the tiles so players can form different words in playing. The school also has poker cards that have English letters on them to help students with their English study.

　　成都机投中学的学生们打的麻将是经过改造过后的。传统麻将一般是由4个人一起玩，共144张牌，牌上面印有汉字和各种符号。机投中学的校长田静云(音)在麻将牌上写上英语字母，学生们在打牌的时候要把牌组成单词。该校还使用写有英语字母的扑克牌来帮助学生学习英语。

　　The "English Mahjong" was modified by the school’s headmaster Tian Jingyun who replaced the original characters with English letters and numbering of each alphabet.

　　这种“英语麻将”是由机投中学校长田静云发明的，他把麻将上原本的字符去掉，转而写上英语字母和相应的字母表位序。

　　As each student take their turn in a clockwise manner, students must make up words with the tiles they have on hand, writing them down in their notebooks. But that’s where the similarity to Scrabble ends. The winner of the game is the student who gets the most words, makes a complete sentence with the words and then tells a story using those words. Not easy!

　　按顺时针方向，每个学生轮流摸牌。学生们必须用自己手里的牌组成单词，并把单词记在笔记本里。这些玩法和拼字游戏很像。要想取胜并不容易，胜者必须要能够组成最多的单词，用这些单词组成一个完整的句子，还要用这些单词讲一个故事。

　　Besides mahjong, the school also has poker cards and checkers with English letters on them. All these Tian’s way of making learning English a fun exercise for the students.

　　除了麻将之外，机投中学还使用印有英文字母的扑克牌和跳棋来帮助学生学习英语。对于学生们来说，田静云的这些方法使得学英语变成了一件有趣的事。

　　Since news broke, netizens have praised Tian for his dedication to teaching his students and his ability to think out of the box.

　　新闻发表后，网民们盛赞了田静云对于教学的奉献精神，还称赞了他的创新思维。

（编辑：何莹莹）