2007-01-07-NewZealand

I just came across this site. I notice on a lot of these sites, that a lot of Americans think of metric as "European" or "foreign" and don't think it's used in English-speaking countries. I come from New Zealand, and being in my early 20s, have grown up completely on metric.

This country is fully metric, we use kilometres(kms),kilograms(kilos,kgs) and milliletres(mls) pretty much exclusively these days. Most people under the age of 40 would use metric only in everyday life. the only thing i know in the old system is my height, which is the only thing we use feet and inches for. I like everyone else think of my weight in kilos, and saying you're weight to someone in pounds is just unheard of these days. I would get an awkward look if I said I weight 200lbs for example.

Road distances and speeds are exclusively in kms, even the older generation doesn't think in miles anymore. Some older people may they're going "100mph" colloquially, when they actually mean "100km/h". The older generation like my grandmothers age would be the only ones who think in the old system, but even they to some extent use the current system. My point is, we've done it and it was pretty easy and is the everyday way of doing things now. We're not isolated by a system no one else uses, like we would have been should we have kept the old system. You have to get out of "converting" old measurements to new ones, or you'll never get your head around it. Just think in metric only and it's easy. After a while, you'll get an idea of what a kg or km is by just using it in everyday life everyday like here.