Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wondobern]

OK, it's not that I don't know how to convert from farenheit to celcius, or inches to centemeters, lbs into kilos, etc.

But, being from the good old US, I sometimes feel like I'm talking a different language, when I hear someone giving the temperature in celcius or distance in Kilometers.

For example, on Christmas we had a tall visitor from Romania visit our church, and I guessed that he was about 6'4" at least, but then he gave his height in centemeters, and it took me a few moments to do the conversion.

Same when weighing myself at the local bath house. It just doesn't seem the same in kilos instead of pounds.

Outiside of sports (running and swimming), seeing liters of pop bottles, or using metric in chemistry class, etc. I'm just not accustomed to talking in metric. Anyone else have this problem?

And how long until I become a fluent metric speaker, that is, it becomes second nature?

[Underwaterbob]

I'll never forget in second year of physics at U, just for completion's sake they made us do a bunch of fairly complex calculations using Imperial units. Feet and pounds are fine until you start getting into units of force and work and you have to start thinking pound-force, slugs and blobs. In short: fucking nightmare. Imperial units need to be abolished.

That said, I'm still getting used to assessing height in terms of centimeters and weight (mass technically) in kilograms. Kilometers and kph are no problem being from Canada.