I teach English to newcomers. One of my lessons is: how to shop for fruits and vegetables. (Another word for fruits and vegetables is produce.) But why is it so confusing to buy fruits and vegetables?
Many times, there’s a price for produce beside the word “Lb.” Often, my students will say something like: “The tomatoes are four dollars, ell-bee.” What they don’t know (because English is crazy!) is that “Lb.” is the short form for pound. And pound is an old way to measure weight. The old way is the imperial system. Most countries use the newer metric system.
The metric way to measure weight is kilogram (kg), which of course is 1,000 grams.
1 pound (lb.) = 450 grams (g)
1 kilogram (kg) = 2.2 pounds (lb.)
So, for example, if you see a price for tomatoes, sometimes the price is by the pound, and sometimes the price is by the kilogram. In English, we would say “The tomatoes are four dollars a pound” or in this case, “The tomatoes are eight dollars and eighty-two cents a kilogram.”
Another imperial measurement of food is the dry pint. This is often used to sell berries. For example, strawberries could be $2.99/pint. (We say: “Two dollars and ninety-nine cents a pint.”) In metric, the strawberries are about $2.99 for 550 millilitres (ml).
In Canada, most things are measured in metric. That means you will see grams, metres, litres, and degrees Celsius (or degrees Centigrade). But in the United States, Americans are still using the old imperial system. The imperial system uses pounds, feet, gallons, and degrees Fahrenheit. Because Canada is so close to the USA, we often end up using both metric and imperial measurements.
Whether the strawberries are in pints or millilitres, they still taste the same!
Shopping for food in English is one of the many lessons at www.ESLFromCanada.