Illustration by Joaquin Kunkel

Coming from the United States to a U.S. university where the language of instruction is English, I did not think that I would have communication issues. Sure, I was in the Middle East, where Arabic is widely spoken, and of course, there might be some cultural misunderstandings. But as a native English speaker, I thought I would be perfectly fine on campus.

This myth was broken in the very first week. When I arrived on campus for Marhaba Week, it was hot. For typical NYU Abu Dhabi students, however, the word hot wasn’t specific enough. Classmates made comments like, Did you know that it was 45 degrees today? This was when communication quickly broke down. For me, 45 degrees meant a brisk day for which I would need to grab a jacket and trade my usual shorts for a pair of jeans. However, many of my classmates from around the world found it hard to consider going outside in 45 degrees.

The difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius wasn’t the only issue though. It was a larger struggle between the metric and imperial systems. I would describe things in feet instead of meters, gallons instead of liters and of course, pounds instead of kilograms. I even wrote the date wrong, writing MM/DD/YYYY in all my official documents.

I wasn’t completely ignorant of the SI unit system. I had learnt about it in school and had been forced to use it in science classes. The numbers never really meant anything to me though — it was simply data. The metric system was something that was just there.

I found solace in talking to other U.S. Americans, in being able to tell them that the weather was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit or that I was 5 feet 9 inches tall. They understood me. I also realized that some of the British students had a good idea of what imperial units were, although we did have other language differences like the elevator-versus-lift debate. There was also a moment of connection with an American faculty member, when he described something in feet and changed it to meters upon noticing that all the students seemed confused. If I wanted to tell someone how cold it was over winter break back home or comment on how heavy something was, I always had to convert. Mid-conversation, I would have to pause and pull out my phone to do a quick calculation, just like someone might use Google Translate to look up a foreign word. Complications came in every form, from daily conversations to shoe-shopping. To a person who wears a men’s 9 in U.S. sizes, size 44 sounded like clown shoes.

There’s always someone who complains about my use of the imperial system. I know the metric system is more easily understood, but the imperial system is all I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to adjust. I’ve learned some of the measurements, like 21 degrees Celsius is a tad bit cold and 2.2 pounds is a kilogram, but some habits persist. I still write the date with the month first and my handouts from class still stick out of my American notebooks by a few inches. When I came to college, I didn’t realize how much of a transition I would truly experience. Many things were obvious but some, like the language barrier, were unknown.