The Space for Expatriates

GETTING USED TO THE METRIC SYSTEM, TEMPERATURE, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

While most of the world uses Centigrade not Fahrenheit when referring to the temperature of things and when using distance measures in meters and kilometers and reference to weight is in kilos not pounds or the British “stones” (14 pounds is the equivalent of one pound), those of you not familiar with Centigrade, meters and kilos might be aided with the following.

Using Centigrade 100 degrees is boiling and 0 degrees is freezing. A little ditty might help also.

40 is very hot, 30 is not, 20 is nice, 10 is cold and 0 is ice.

That’s ok in general but how about when you hear the weather temperature is 25 degrees Centigrade. There is a specific mathematical formula of multiplying by 1.8 and adding 32 to change Centigrade to Fahrenheit (25 x 1.8 + 32 = 77 degrees Fahrenheit). But for those of use without a calculator or cannot do that in our head then just double it and add. 25 doubled equals 50 plus 30 equals 80. So 77 vs. 80 for most is “close enough”.

Now let us tackle kilometers and miles. One meter is 39.37 inches and thus a 1000 meters is the equivalent of 0.62 miles. For those runners reading this book it becomes a little easier. We know that a 5K run is 3.1 miles and a 10K run is 6.2 miles.

Want a “close enough” formula. If the distance is expressed in kilometers then times it by 0.6. 50 kilometers therefore is 30 miles (actually 31 but “close enough”).

Now that kilogram (1000 grams) of avocados that you are buying, what is that in pounds? Actual is that a kilogram is 2.2 pounds. Want that “close enough”, then a kilogram is 2 pounds and half a kilogram is one pound.

Finally, when you see that beverage with a volume of 1 liter it is 1.056 quarts. “Close enough” gives you one liter equals one quart, two liters equals ½ gallon and 4 liters equals one gallon.