[ivlad]

I acquainted with a guy at a conference in US and he was genuinely surprised I had no idea, how long US mile is. I explained him, we use metric system and his response was “but don’t you learn *the standard* system in ache school?” I did not know, how to respond.

[bmacho]

AFAIK USA people learn both systems in school. So it understandable if they are not aware that the rest of the world don't know about their system, miles, inches, feet, gallons, pounds, etc, unless they are into American culture (books, movies).

[pxc]

One of the things that USians are taught in school when they learn these two systems is that everyone else uses metric. We're typically taught it in our science classes, because even in the US, scientists still use predominantly (exclusively?) metric. It follows that there's no parallel reason for most foreigners to learn US imperial units, especially in an institutional setting like public school.

[JumpCrisscross]

> we use metric system and his response was “but don’t you learn *the standard* system in ache school?” I did not know, how to respond

It’s just a difference in travel and seniority. If you aren’t talking across continents there is no need to speak two languages.

[simiones]

> If you aren’t talking across continents there is no need to speak two languages

Continents have nothing to do with this. If you live in the UK and need to talk to people in the USA and Australia, you can be monolingual and still speak with people in three continents. If you live in Switzerland, you may need to speak 3 languages just to be able to talk with all your neighbors.

[redwall_hp]

There is also an abundance of people who don't speak English, or prefer not to, right here in North America. The Canadian province of Quebec, for instance, legally mandates bilingual signage and generally prefers French. And Mexico is right there too.

There are also a great many families in the US whose first-generation members have limited English.

[nrr]

There are also many of us who have family in the US since the 1860's and still speak (Alemannic) German at home and in the surrounding community.

This also goes notwithstanding the indigenous peoples, whose Diné bizaad and Tsalagi, for example, are also spoken here.

[JumpCrisscross]

Languages as in knowing two systems. Sort of like how most people don’t need to know international date or thousands/decimal separator conventions, but those functioning internationally—whether due to being well travelled or senior enough to conduct international trade and/or relations—do.

My going to a conference in India and arguing over the lakh/crore system isn’t useful to anyone [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system

[simiones]

Even then, continents have little to do with it. The Indian numbering system is indeed used in much of Asia - but it's not used in Russia for example. If you live in Vladivostok, you might need to learn these two systems even if you never do business with anyone farther than 300km from you.

And in Europe there are numerous differences between countries of this kind - Germans and a few others use different number separators (1,000 is 1000 in France or the UK or Spain, but 1 in Germany or Romania). Several places drive on opposite sides of the road. The UK uses many imperial units. I'm sure there are others I haven't even come across yet.

[JumpCrisscross]

> continents have little to do with it. The Indian numbering system is indeed used in much of Asia - but it's not used in Russia for example

Got it, you’re parsing continents literally. I was speaking colloquially. Read it as “cultures” in the first comment.

[pezezin]

> (1,000 is 1000 in France or the UK or Spain, but 1 in Germany or Romania)

No, France and Spain follow the same standard as Germany: dots as thousands separators, a comma as the decimal separator. Actually most of Europe does the same, the only exceptions being the UK and Ireland:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#/media/File:...