First things first, I LOVE the look of this traditional character for turtle (龜 gūi). I might go as far as saying that it’s my favourite.  It almost looks like the special ninja swords (Sai) that Raphael uses. It’s as if all those years back when someone was creating this character, they foresaw a future where turtles would wield ninja swords!

This summer, Michael Bay will be coming out with another blockbuster. No, it’s not Transformers 12!  But rather, Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles (or “Hero Turtles”, depending on where you grew up).

A 1990 comic book from Taiwan

Now, perhaps it’s a sign that I’ve grown up, or maybe it’s that I  recently sat through 3 hours of Transformers 4 (more like 3 hours of adverts!), but i’m not massively excited about this.

Anyway, it got me thinking about my serious lack of vocabulary. What is the word for a teenager, a mutant, a ninja, and a turtle?

So let’s take a look.

Vocabulary 词汇

• Teenager
• 青少年
• qīngshàonián

• Mutant
• 变种 [變種]
• biànzhǒng

• Ninja
• 忍者
• rěnzhě

• Turtle
• 龟 [龜]
• guī
• （I would tend to say 乌龟 wūguī rather than just 龟）

So you might think that the title of the movie would be 青少年变种忍者龟 but no.  It’s actually much simpler. It’s just

忍者神龟 (CN) / 忍者龜 (TW).

This literally translates as Ninja “God” Turtles or just “Ninja Turtles“ in Taiwan.

OK, let’s think of some useful example sentences with our new found words.

What they are known as in China

——————————————————-

Example sentences.

1. Teenagers really like mini Ninjas

S.青少年很喜欢迷你忍者

T.青少年很喜歡迷你忍者。

P.Qīngshàonián hěn xǐhuān mínǐ rěnzhě

2. Ninjas like to take off their shoes in the house.

S.忍者喜欢在家里脱鞋子

T.忍者喜歡在家裡脫鞋子

P.Rěnzhě xǐhuān zài jiālǐ tuō xiézi

3. The turtle decided to take off his shell for the weekend.

S.乌龟决定在周末把牠的壳脱下来

T.烏龜決定在周末把牠的殼脫下來

Wūguī juédìng zài zhōumò bǎ tā de ké tuō xiàlái

——————————————————-

If you want to read more about the TMNT, check out the ChineseHacks.com article about discovering the 1990 comic books!

I hope you learnt some useful new words and phrases.  Let me know your thoughts on the new movie.  I think i’ll wait until it comes out on iTunes.

P.s. This is the stuff they wear for the green screen.  Pretty cool!

• About
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Gwilym James

Executive Producer at ChinesePod

You probably recognize Gwilym as one of the co-hosts of ChinesePod. Gwilym hails from the U.K. but has lived in Taiwan since 2012. His interests include keeping abreast of technology news, going to the cinema, and playing with his lovely cats.

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