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At eight foot one, Zhao Liang is possibly the world's tallest man

 
Hello everyone, I'm Jojo from Guangdong. I want to know what the following sentences mean:
 
He has brown hair and is six foot six.
He is really short. He is five four.
 
Do they mean someone's height?
 
Jo:  Hello, I’m Jo and this week’s BBC Learning English Question and Answer of the Week comes  from  Jojo  in Guangdong. Helping me  today  is Feifei – hi Feifei.
 
Feifei:  Hello Jo. Jojo 说她听到了下面的这几句话…
 
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He has brown hair and is six foot six.
 
She is really short. She’s five four.
 
Jo:  Jojo wants to know the meaning of six foot six and five four.
 
Feifei:  也许  Jojo 已经猜到了这些句子是和身高有关的。Are these ways of talking about height Jo? 身高。
 
Jo:  Height. Well, yes you are right Jojo, they are ways of talking about height in English. Now  if  I was  to ask you  Feifei, how  tall are you? What would you say? 
 
Feifei:  I would say I’m one metre seventy centimetres.
 
Jo:    Right so you use metres and centimetres.
 
Feifei:  米 metres 还有厘米  centimetres.
 
Jo:  So  using  your way  in  English  you  could  say  I’m  a  hundred  and  seventy centimetres,  one  metre  seventy  centimetres  or  one  metre  seventy.  In English we call this the metric system of measurement.
 
Feifei:  在英语里像用厘米，米，千米等等类似的丈量单位来计数的方式被称为  metric system  of measurement 公制计数法。 用10或100这两个数字的倍数来计数相对比较容易。现在大多数国家都会用公制计数法，不过在英国人们还在使用相对较传统的，较老的  imperial system 英制的度量衡制。官方正式的丈量方法是公制的，不过还有一些东西仍然采用英制的度量方法。
 
Jo:  So for example in the UK you can buy a pint of beer. One pint is about half a litre. Our road signs are still in miles – one mile is around 1,609 metres.
 
Feifei:  在英国，通常在酒吧里啤酒是以品脱作为丈量单位出售的，英国的路标上我们会看到英里计数而不是我们熟知的公里。英制的度量方式其实是和自然界的东西还有人的身体部位相关的，比方说用手，脚，手指等作为计量单位。在日常生活中，大多数人还是会用老式的英制度量方法来计数的，比如在谈论身高的时候。
 
Jo:  This is BBC Learning English and we’re answering this week’s Question and Answer of the Week language question. Jojo noticed that some people use different language to talk about height in the UK – rather than metres and centimetres. They have heard words like six foot six and five four. 
 
Feifei:  We asked a few people how tall they were. Have a listen to their answers 
 
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- Six foot two
- Six foot
- One metre and eighty centimetres
- Five four
- Five nine, five ten.
 
Jo:  Now interestingly one man did say one metre eighty centimetres but everyone else used the old imperial system. Six foot two, six foot, five four, five nine, five ten. So let’s explain a little further.
 
Feifei:  英制的度量身高的说法是  feet 和  inches, 也就是英尺和英寸。
 
Jo:  So one inch is two and a half centimetres. There are twelve inches in one foot. So one foot is around thirty and a half centimetres.   
 
Feifei:  听到刚才  Jo 说的这些数字了吗？1  inch 1英寸就等于2.5厘米，1英尺里有12个英寸。那么1英尺也就是30.5厘米。
 
Jo:  So  if someone  is six  foot –  it’s one metre eighty  three. They might say  I am  six  foot six – meaning  six  feet and six  inches – or one metre ninety eight.
 
Feifei:  值得注意的是英尺  foot 作为度量单位的时候，它的复数形式可以是  foot 或是  feet; 而在  foot 时脚的意思是，它的复数形式只能是  feet.
 
Jo:  However sometimes people don’t say the words feet or foot and inches and just say the numbers. So instead of six feet six  inches  they might say six six. Five nine would be five feet nine inches – or one metre seventy five.
 
Feifei:  How tall are you Jo?
 
Jo:  I’m five four. Five foot four. Five feet four inches. Or one metre sixty two. Most  people  in  the UK  do  know what  their  height  is  in  centimetres  or  in metres as often on official forms you have to write it that way.
 
Feifei:  也就是说在正式的表格中 official  forms, 大家应该使用公制的 metric 度量单位，如公里，米，厘米等等。不过在日常生活中人们还在普遍使用旧的英制度量单位。
 
Jo:  Wow,  so  quite  a  complicated  explanation  this  week  but  we  hope  that helped to answer your question Jojo. Thanks for writing in.
 
Feifei:  别忘了随身登陆我们的网站下载免费英语学习资料 www.bbcchina.com.cn. 
 
Jo:  Or  if  you  have  a  question  you  want  to  ask  us  just  email  us chinaelt@bbc.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now. 
 
Feifei:  Bye! 

This week’s question was sent to us by Jojo from Guangdong saying she had seen sentences with the phrases ‘six foot six’ and ‘five four’ in them. They were wondering what this meant and if it was a way to talk about height.

Jojo guessed correctly that this is a way to talk about height in the UK.

There are different measuring systems that exist in the UK. One is called the metric system, which is the official system to use in public life such as in shops and on official forms. This uses metres, centimetres, kilometres, kilograms, litres.

However, an older more traditional system is called the imperial system. It's a way of measuring things mainly related to nature or body parts so you could have a good idea of how long or deep things were by comparing them to distances on your body, or things you use in everyday life.

This system is still used unofficially by lots of people in the UK (and in other countries too). And even in public life for example, beer is still sold in pints (which is around half a litre) and road signs in Britain and cars still use miles rather than kilometres.

The way people talk about height in the UK is another example of this. The old imperial system had measurements of feet and inches.

1 inch = 2.5cm
1 foot = 12 inches (which is around 30.5cm)

Note that when using the word foot for measurements, the plural is feet and foot (unlike the body part foot, whose plural is always feet).

So if you ask someone how tall they are they might say: six foot, or six feet (1.83 metres). They might say they are six foot six, or six feet six (1.98 metres). This is a short way of saying six feet and six inches. An even shorter form you might hear is six six.

We hope that has helped you Jojo. Thank you for your question.

If you have a question about the English, we will try our best to answer it for you. There are all kinds of language questions on our website - just email your question to questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.

Glossary 词汇