Don't know how to play Mahjong...

Do you have a Windows based PC? They usually have a mahjong game included in the games that come already installed on the computer.
On BFG You might try "World's Greatest Cities Mahjong"....that has many different varieties of mahjong included in the gameplay, including the common "find the pair of matching tiles", and has pretty decent instructions.

twinsoniclab wrote:I don't know a thing about Mahjong (other than playing with my grandmother's pretty wooden box of bamboo tiles) so, is this a game to learn with? I see it is timed, so that might be a "no."
What Mahjong game do you recommend for a complete beginner. I am tiring of HOGs and their ilk!

These games have little to do with the game played with those tiles you remember and people sitting at a table.

Basically computer Mahjong has variations on selecting matching tiles that have been organized in layers, so you need to select the best matches to ultimately clear them all.

Feel free to demo this one or the myriad of others. They are self explanatory.

I've never played "real" mahjong with the tiles like you describe. My advice is to download games from and try them out. The ones I've played give instructions at the beginning as to how to play. There are many games that aren't timed. You can tell within the trial period whether the game is for you are not. Good luck!