Auf englisch, bitte!

The special guests appearing in last semester's newsletters tended to actually have input in the columns. Today's guest is Officer Ota Isao of the Tokyo Municipal Police, whose job is merely to ensure that Asuka Langley comes down with an acute case of lead poisoning should she try to sneak into this column. Yes, her German is that bad.

In this column, I'll cover all of the German you need to know in order to understand the subtitles in Heldensagen von Kosmosinsel, also known as Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Although German will probably never be as ridiculously overused in anime as English, it did manage to become the official language of the Galactic Empire -- which is based upon mid-1800's Prussia.

German's definite articles are der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neuter). Adjectives come before their predicates. That's all of the grammar necessary to understand the subtitles.

Asuka: Wie--

(Her entrance is cut off by five shots from a Springfield Armory 1911-A1 tactical response pistol. One bullet per target is nice in theory, but Officer Ota is well-known for being trigger-happy, and he's still got four left.)

Brad: Damn, that's a nice piece -- SV2 must have one heck of an acquisitions budget. Maybe CJAS will be able to catch up if everyone goes to the back table and signs up for membership.

Anyhow, the important vocabulary:

Ship Classes:
Battleship	das Schlachtschiff
Cruiser	das Kreuzfahrtschiff
Frigate	die Frigatte
Flagship	das Flaggschiff
Miscellaneous:
Fortress	die Festung
Fleet	die Flotte
Sovereign Lord	der Landesherrf
Ranks:
Ensign	der Fähnrich
Lieutenant	der Leutnant
Captain	der Kapitän
Commodore	der Commodore
Admiral	der Admiral
(numerous variations of the above, which you can probably figure out)

Any missing words (there are bound to be a few) can be looked up with the LEO German-English Dictionary at http://www.leo.org/. While I'm handing out links, there's also the LoGH Information Center at http://www.nwlink.com/~logh/logh.htm. (The incorrect extension isn't a typo.) Auf wiedersehen! (aber viellecht soll das in diesem Kontext "Auf wiederlesen!" sein)