OT: Latest Japan Nuke report

That's how I imagine an American could pronounce it. I guess you guys must say it "sieze-ium" like us down under. Sessium sound like something from the turd pool not the reactor pool.

That is a almost certainly katakana phontenics problem in the Japanese language news report that has been replicated by a dumb US newreader.

Closest Japanese phonetics to caesium would be se-shi-u-mu.

Regards, Martin Brown

One of the local talking heads in my area pronounced "tsunami" as "sue-knew-me"...

Anybody remember that olympics a few years ago at Nagano? Virtually everyone on the TeeVee was pronouncing it "noggin-oh." When I was there, the Japanese people pronounced it "na-GAH-no."

Cheers! Rich

Texans aren't sure how to pronounce Mexia. MEXXY-uh, or meh-HAY-uh, both are used. It's a little town near Waco. (WAY-co)

Only in America. UK TV presenters make a serious effort to get foreign names pronounced correctly. US presenters almost always mangle them.

Regards, Martin Brown

Did the active radio have the proper front end?

The other day I heard one pronounce cesium as "sess-ium".

Cheers! Rich

How about "Si-Si-um", senior.

No, it was definitely, "sess," rhymes with "mess". Yours is closer to the actual pronunciation, except for the Z in the middle syllable. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Anybody remember when this guy was sworn in as the PM in Japan?

The day he was sworn in, Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather all said tak-a-shit-a.

The next day, they ALL said tak-ash-ta. They were probably right the first time.

Actually, that's quite common in Japan. For example, "sukiyaki" is "officially" pronounced "s'kiyaki." They don't have any standalone consonants in Katagana or Hiragana (two of the written languages), so for an "S" sound they use the character for "su" or "si" and just elide the vowel sound.

FWIW, I was stationed in Japan for a couple of years when I was in the USAF.

Hope This Helps! Rich

Counterexample is "N". The only solitary consonant.

Trailing u's are very prone to being quietly dropped. There is no "si" only "shi" and combinations with "ya"/"yo"/"yu".

Wiki tries to explain the various sounds in Japanese phonemes:

Obviously didn't pay much attention to your Japanese teacher then.

Regards, Martin Brown

But..my way is concurrent with wetbackian.

Where can I find an intelligent forum discussion of the situation at the Fukushima plant? I am utterly confused as to why they seem to be saying that over a month into this there are two cores that are STILL partially exposed.

Here's a good lecture with lots of background in fundamentals.

The absolute motherlode of info is here:

Several guys are reactor physicists, ex operators, etc. and really know their stuff. You have to join to see some of the pictures, but it is well worth it.

Fukushima dai-ichi is a ROYAL mess, 3 reactors seriously melted, spent fuel pools in trouble, buildings blown apart from the inside, radioactive debris scattered about, massive electrical and piping damage, no instrument reading can actually be trusted, no control device can be expected to work, just a colossal mess and very difficult to work in.

At Three Mile Island, they had a serious meltdown, but the containment held, even though they had a hydrogen explosion. Here, it is fairly clear that 3 reactors have blown their containment in one way or another, and the spent fuel pools are wrecked and were always outside the containment. Absolutely nobody has even the faintest idea how #4 blew up, as it had no fuel in the reactor. With all the debris, smashed wall panels, dangling rebar, etc. it is extremely hard to even get pictures of the inside of the reactor buildings to figure out what is damaged and what isn't.

Jon

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Thanks Jon, that is just what I was looking for. The tiny trickle of information in "Japan Today" or "Japan Times" or the regular news outlets is quite pathetic. Seems incredible that robots with cameras have only recently been sent in to try to examine the containments. I thought Japan was loaded with industrial and even dancing robotics?

Microelectronics don't like ionising radiation. Shielding will deal with alpha and beta particles, but you can't shield against gamma radiation or fast neutrons if you want the robot to be capable of movement.