Question: How can someone born in America gain intuition for metric units?
Not really about Japan per se, but I get this question a lot, especially from newbie Americans who come into Japan. Frankly, I'm always a little baffled by it. I don't mean that as a knock against anyone, just simply that the answer seems obvious to me.
How do you get good at anything? By doing it. Same here. How do you get good at metric? By using it.
When I moved to Japan over a dozen years ago, I knew the basics of metric, but I had no sense of any of the units. So I figured out some rough estimates for conversion and started using metric for everything. Complete immersion, more or less.
My temperature setting on my clock (this was before smartphone apps) was switched to Celsius. I kept in mind that 10 is on the chilly side and 30 is about equal to 90, but otherwise I just read that clock everyday and then felt what it felt like when I went outside and slowly built up a feel for the measurement.
A few conversions I kept in mind: A meter is about a yard, 30 centimeters is a foot, 2.5 centimeters is basically an inch. Kilograms are roughly half of a pound. And I had a half dozen more. So on so forth.
Nothing exact, just rough conversions. But here is the key: I only used these rough conversions in the beginning and after that only when I had to. Otherwise I tried to stick to metric as much as possible.
I couldn't say how long it took—a month or so maybe—but eventually I started to get a feel for things. These days I can use metric as easily as USCS† and either system is fine as far as I'm concerned.
So no secret. Just use them. You'll get the hang for it before you know it.
Footnotes
†: US Customary System units, which are similar but not the same as Imperial System units.
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 | David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More? |
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