# È alto due metri



## utente200

Come si dice "è alto due metri" in inglese? Ci sono differenze tra inglese britannico e americano in questa frase? Tipo unità di misura?.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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## Rama

"He is two meters(_AE_)/metres(_BE_) tall"


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## utente200

Rama said:


> &quot;He is two meters(_AE_)/metres(_BE_) tall&quot;


 
Si, anch'io volevo usare questa forma, ma in inglese non si usano i "piedi" (feet) come unità di misura?


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## picci511

utente200 said:


> Si, anch'io volevo usare questa forma, ma in inglese non si usano i "piedi" (feet) come unità di misura?




Si, negli stati uniti usiamo "piedi" e "iarde"


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## utente200

picci511 said:


> Si, negli stati uniti usiamo &quot;piedi&quot; e &quot;iarde&quot;


 
Va bene lo stesso se uso la forma di Rama? non saprei a quanti piedi o iarde corrispondano 2 metri...


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## picci511

3 piedi = 1 iarda;  1 iarda = 1.1 metri.


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## AlabamaBoy

He is six foot six.
He is six feet six inches tall.


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## utente200

AlabamaBoy said:


> He is six foot six.
> He is six feet six inches tall.


 
Grazie. Questa forma va bene anche in inglese britannico?


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## AlabamaBoy

utente200 said:


> Grazie. Questa forma va bene anche in inglese britannico?



Sì, certo, come no!


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## You little ripper!

utente200 said:


> Va bene lo stesso se uso la forma di Rama? non saprei a quanti piedi o iarde corrispondano 2 metri...


Utente, here is a conversion table. If you put in the measurement in metres it will give you  the equivalent in feet and inches and vice versa. (2 metres = 6.56 feet)


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## AlabamaBoy

Che lo faccio chiaro, non si dice "He is 6.56 feet tall."


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## You little ripper!

AlabamaBoy said:


> Che lo faccio chiaro, non si dice "He is 6.56 feet tall."


Why not, AB? Most people would round it off at "6.5 feet tall", or say "6 feet 5 inches tall", but I don't see why you wouldn't say "6.56 feet tall" if you were being precise.


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## AlabamaBoy

I have never ever in my life heard someone say that instead of six foot six. (6.56 feet is 6 feet six inches and change)  A person's height, at least over here, is never ever decimal. It is always, always feet and inches. To be more precise you would always always always say "he is six feet six and three-quarters inches tall."

Do you really use decimal feet down under?


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## brian

Charles Costante said:


> Why not, AB? Most people would round it off at "6.5 feet tall", or say "6 feet 5 inches tall", but I don't see why you wouldn't say "6.56 feet tall" if you were being precise.



Because you need to make sure not to mix up the *decimal* (period/full stop in the US, comma in some other places) and the *hash* (or whatever it's called).

' = feet
'' = inches

So 6.5 (ft.) is *not* the same as 6'5'':

6.5 ft. = 6 and a half feet = 6'6'' (since there are 12 inches in a foot, 6 inches is a half foot)
6'5'' = 6 feet, 5 inches

What's more, if 6.5 is not followed by _ft._, then it could be yards, inches, meters, anything! But 6'5'' _always_ designates feet and inches.


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## You little ripper!

AlabamaBoy said:


> I have never ever in my life heard someone say that instead of six foot six. (6.56 feet is 6 feet six inches and change)  A person's height, at least over here, is never ever decimal. It is always, always feet and inches.
> 
> Do you really use decimal feet down under?


There are quite a few Google listings for is 6.5 feet tall  but most of them appear to be related to inanimate objects. There are also a few listings for he is 6.5 feet tall and a couple for she is 6.5 feet tall. I also quickly checked a couple of other measurements (6.0 feet and 6.2 feet) and there are listings for those too. Most of them appear to be American websites. 



brian8733 said:


> Because you need to make sure not to mix up the *decimal* (period/full stop in the US, comma in some other places) and the *hash* (or whatever it's called).
> 
> ' = feet
> '' = inches
> 
> So 6.5 (ft.) is *not* the same as 6'5'':
> 6.5 ft. = 6 and a half feet = 6'6'' (since there are 12 inches in a foot, 6 inches is a half foot)
> 6'5'' = 6 feet, 5 inches


I know that Brian; I didn't say it was. They are just examples of usage.





> What's more, if 6.5 is not followed by _ft._, then it could be yards, inches, meters, anything! But 6'5'' _always_ designates feet and inches


I know that Brian. All my examples use "feet".


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## brian

But this is not correct:



			
				Charles Costante said:
			
		

> Most people would round it off at "6.5 feet tall", or say "6 feet 5 inches tall"



If you round 6.56 ft. to 6.5 ft., like you say, then it would be 6 feet *6* inches, not 5.


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## You little ripper!

brian8733 said:


> But this is not correct:
> 
> 
> 
> If you round 6.56 ft. to 6.5 ft., like you say, then it would be 6 feet *6* inches, not 5.


Brian, I may not be a genius when it comes to maths but I do know the basics! I know I should have been more precise but I wasn't really concerned with the exact translation of one to the other; I was trying to make a point about usage.


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## brian

Oh, okay, it just looked like you were mixing up *. *for *' *& *''* (which indeed many Americans sometimes do), and of course with 6.5 vs. 6'5'' it's not _that_ big of a deal--only a 1-inch difference, though even that could be considered a lot --but when it comes to something like 6.9  vs. 6'9'' there's actually a 1.8-inch difference, which is much more significant. 

Anyway, sorry for the confusion.


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## You little ripper!

brian8733 said:


> Oh, okay, it just looked like you were mixing up *. *for *' *& *''* (which indeed many Americans sometimes do), and of course with 6.5 vs. 6'5'' it's not _that_ big of a deal--only a 1-inch difference, though even that could be considered a lot --but when it comes to something like 6.9  vs. 6'9'' there's actually a 1.8-inch difference, which is much more significant.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the confusion.


I realized after I had posted it that I should have converted it, but then I thought "It's not a maths forum, and besides who's going to notice!" Famous last thoughts!


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## brian

Sorry, I got my degree in math. Can't help myself! 

Anyway, to steer us back on topic, the translation of this sentence has very little to do with measurement conversion--that's simply a choice the translator will have to make. I wanted to point out that, in a different context--i.e. not talking about people's heights--you could say _*It*'s 2 meters *high*.

_Things, like buildings or mounds, are "high" (_or_ "tall"), while people are only "tall." Some people may say "He's six feet *high*," but to me that's used to imply he's as tall as a building.


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## tomzenith

You do occasionally hear people say 'I'm six and a half feet tall', but it would be unusual to hear any smaller fraction used.



brian8733 said:


> I wanted to point out that, in a different context--i.e. not talking about people's heights--you could say _*It*'s 2 meters *high*._



Is there a similar tall/high split in Italian? Tall is describing something's height as a physical property (when I stand on the ground I am 6 feet tall), and high describes hieght as distance from the ground (if I stand on the wing of a aeroplane I may be several thousand feet high, whilst still only being 6 feet tall). How would this difference be expressed in Italian?


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## utente200

Mmh... you make me confused a bit... so, keeping to what brian8733 said, could the correct sentence be simply: "It's 2 meters tall"?


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## brian

Dipende. Di che cosa si tratta? Che cosa è alto 2 metri?


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## reef

Tricky calculations apart, back to the very first post, if you say "è alto due metri" just as a saying, 'cause you don't really know how tall he is but he's just over the average, you can say "he's seven feet tall"! Seven feet is actually more than 2 meters (it's 210 cms), but it's a good equivalent.


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## AlabamaBoy

Interesting question, reef. There are not too many people seven feet tall. I think you are likely to hear (and it would sound natural if you said):

He's really tall, six foot something.
He's well over six feet tall.
He looks like a renegade from the NBA. (National Basketball Association.)
He's at least six foot six.
He stands over six and a half feet (tall).
He is a skyscraper; he is pushing seven feet.

At the risk of getting a response from Charles, it is possible, and grammatically correct, but very uncommon to say:

He is probably more than six point five feet tall.


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## reef

AlabamaBoy said:


> There are not too many people seven feet tall. I think you are likely to hear (and it would sound natural if you said):
> 
> He's really tall, six foot something.
> He's well over six feet tall.
> He looks like a renegade from the NBA. (National Basketball Association.)
> He's at least six foot six.
> He stands over six and a half feet (tall).
> He is a skyscraper; he is pushing seven feet.


Thank you Alabama Boy!


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## geen

utente200 said:


> Grazie. Questa forma va bene anche in inglese britannico?



In British English the question would be
"How tall is he?"
and the possible responses are:

"He's six foot six". 

"He's six feet six" (probably less common)

You will not often hear "He's 6 feet six inches" as what directly follows feet in the sentence has to be the number of inches, thus any mention of inches is redundant.

In spoken British English, however, it is even simpler than the above. The speaker's answer will usually take the form "he's six six". As most people don't use metric units in the UK (at least not for height) terms like "five eight" "five ten" etc. can only have one meaning if given in response to the question "how tall is he?" It is the number of feet then the number of inches.


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## brian

Same in American English, geen.

"Six six" = 6'6'' = "Six feet, six inches"


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## utente200

Let's see, for example:- Quell'uomo è alto 3 metri (ho detto per esempio ).- That man is 9 feet 84 inches tall. Is it right?


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## AlabamaBoy

In your example, he is nine foot ten.


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## reef

utente200 said:


> Let's see, for example:- Quell'uomo è alto 3 metri (ho detto per esempio ).- That man is 9 feet 84 inches tall. Is it right?


No! Il sistema è "dodicesimale", quindi ogni 12 inches raggiungi 1 foot!
Il convertitore dice: 3 metri = 9.84 feet

quindi sono 9 feet + (0.84 X 12) inches = 9 feet, 10 inches!

I know it's complicated, that's why I don't understand why they don't use decimal system!


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## AlabamaBoy

reef said:


> I know it's complicated, that's why I don't understand why they don't use decimal system!



D'accordo!

Tutti i bamini vorrebbero usare il sistema metrica (système international) ma dopo crescono, non vogliono cambiarsi.  Come un fisico, devo usare tutte e due.


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