尺 or 呎?

[Strawberries513]

I was wondering which of these was the correct word for "foot" (a 12-inch measurement). any help is appreciated.

PS: how would one say, "I am 5 foot 6 inches tall"?

[skylee]

For the metric system, you use 公尺. But for "5 foot", I would use 5 英尺or 5 呎.

"I am 5 foot 6 inches tall" is "我五呎六吋高".

[malinuo]

"我五呎六吋高".

How likely is a Chinese to understand non metric measurements?

[Jonny Wang]

I always use 英尺 and 英寸 for English/Imperial units. And I find that Chinese are as good with feet and inches as Americans are with meters - they don't have a clue! I get a lot of products manufactured in Chinese factories for American companies and they always take the engineering drawings I give them in inches and convert them to metric.

Of course, I would do the same if someone gave me a drawing in metric units (millimeters) (although I've somewhat adjusted to meters now that I live in a metric country and have a metric wife )

[Jonny Wang]

I am curious to know about the characters recommended by others: 呎　and 吋 don't appear in the dictionary Ｉ have. How are they different from 尺 and 寸？

[skylee]

There are many other dictionaries, take a look ->

http://www.iciba.com/ -> 呎 / 吋

http://cdict.giga.net.tw/ -> 呎 / 吋

I think the ones with the mouth radical are specifically for the english system. And the iciba website has remarked that these characters have been ousted from mainland china.

How likely is a Chinese to understand non metric measurements?

If the Chinese is from Hong Kong then he/she will understand them without problems.

[xiaocai]

We use 米(meter) for metric system in mainland China. Sometimes you may also come across 尺 for traditional chinese measurments, which is roughly about 1/3 meter.

As one from mainland, I have no ideal how tall 5 foot 6 inches is.