While I do really love building, painting, and weathering Maschinen Krieger models, there’s one aspect of them I don’t like… pronouncing the names of some of them.

Now, a few are easy… Gladiator, for example. It’s named after that movie. (I think.) Or SAFS… although that is fun to say it as a word… like it rhymes with “laughs”. But others confound me.

Names like Falke, Großer Hund, and Kröte can confound me. In my Southern US English style, I just want to say them like they are – FalKay, Groberhund, and Krote with a long “Oh”. Simple, straightforward.

But no… that’s not good enough. Because if I ask the AI Deathbots of Murder to say them… it might be all over the board. And the Maschinen Krieger purists will undoubtedly be waiting to jump on with a comment that often begins with “Fun fact”…. which drives me nuts because it’s never, ever “fun”.. And then the pronunciation explanations ensue. All of which are basically some form of “WRONG!”

The really funny part (to me at least) is that almost never do those lectures from the purists on the proper way to say it in German ever really align with how my German colleague at work tells me it’s said. And by German colleague I don’t mean their family was from there several generations ago. No, this is German German. Grew up there. Learned to speak it from childhood.

And when she tells me how to say something, there is all sorts of little nuance of inflection in there that I can never get right. Usually she just smiles and says “close enough”.

(I’m sure the Ma.K purists will say she is speaking the wrong German… 🤦‍♂️)

So I’ve decided I’m done with all the nonsense of trying to say a word in a language I don’t speak so that people who don’t speak that language can insist on their own pronunciations that aren’t correct. I’m old enough that I can just give it that Clint Eastwood disgusted look and move on quietly.

From now on, they’re not Falke, Großer Hund, and Kröte. Nope. Nosirree. (THAT is Southern…) Going forward, they’re Falcon, Big Dog, and Toad.

Now… I tell all that to say this.

Here’s a video about painting the Ruler Turtle. Or King Turtle. Or just… Turtle.

Feel free to say it however you want.