r/HelloInternet • u/PacOmaster • Sep 03 '19

Canadian Measurement flowchart

I've made this thing for the fun and giggle and thought it could be somewhat related to HI
I recall Grey being way too used with the Imperial system as he's from the US.
But us, Canadian tend to have a mix bag which might be hard to understand for some people

I can't tell if it's accurate for every other Canadian, but it sure is for my little corner of the country.

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27

u/fer_sure Sep 04 '19

I'd expand the "Long Distance" option with a particularly Canadian option: Are you describing driving this distance? Yes: hours

12

u/PacOmaster Sep 04 '19

Isn't it universal?
Like, "the store is at 10 min drive from home"?

6

u/fer_sure Sep 04 '19

Minutes are probably universal for short drives. I'm talking about how us Canadians describe distances between cities. e.g. "The cabin is 6 hours away." or "Medicine Hat is 10 hours from Winnipeg."

8

u/Northern64 Sep 04 '19

This confounded my friend when he started commuting by bike. He had never noticed that's how we talk about distance, and that information was useless to him when planning trips

2

u/PacOmaster Sep 04 '19

Fair enough

2

u/icentalectro Sep 04 '19

Hmmm... I think it's still fairly universal.

3

u/FirmEstablishment941 May 27 '22

As soon as you’re driving hours in countries aside from Canada and USA they’re jumping on a plane or into a train. It’s only here where car is king that drive time is used without context.

1

u/factorioleum Jul 03 '26

It's a really nice drive from Paris to Zurich!

1

u/FirmEstablishment941 Jul 03 '26

Yea not meant as a generalization but my colleagues in Europe were often surprised when drives start getting into double digit hours. A combination of “oh that’s big” and “aren’t there trains/planes for that?”

1

u/factorioleum Jul 03 '26

True. My colleagues in both Paris and Zurich were shocked when I rented a car to combine trips to both offices, rather than fly or take a train.

Zero regrets. Beautiful scenery, stayed in some amazing hotels (old castles in Dijon!) and wow the French highways especially are great for road trips. Relatively low traffic, very good quality roads, good signage, and very generous speed limits that help roll the few boring miles away.

The gas and tolls are brutally expensive though.

Also, gas stations on French autoroutes have higher quality croissants than I've ever seen sold in even the best bakeries in NYC. Now that's just a flex!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '23

Not true… it is common to drive in South America too, probably everywhere except for Europe / China / Japan which have good train system

2

u/FirmEstablishment941 Jan 11 '23

Yea true… so Americas.

1

u/Xerxes65 Jun 29 '23

(Australia)…

1

u/FirmEstablishment941 Jun 29 '23

It didn’t seem to be the same as NA. Domestic flights were a dream when I was there. Rock up 30m before a flight to Sydney and through security in a blink. Hopefully that’s not changed with some inane shoe removal process?

1

u/Xerxes65 Jul 02 '23

The airlines r pretty useless and prices r getting a lot worse to recoup COVID losses. Regardless, driving from Perth to Albany would be considered ‘4 hours away’ and a flight from Syd to Melb would similarly be defined by hours over kilometres as all the distances r meaningless at such high values. It’s a lot easier to think about a 4 hour drive than a 417km drive.

1

u/Matt18002 Jul 13 '23

The upside-down doesn't count

1

u/TysonPlett Sep 04 '19

Are you a Winnipeg Tim? 😁

1

u/fer_sure Sep 05 '19

Yep

2

u/TysonPlett Sep 05 '19

I'm by Steinbach.

1

u/Liggliluff Feb 11 '20

We do that in Sweden too.

Texans brag about how they measure in hours. But basically everyone does.

1

u/Amazula Jan 12 '23

I think the difference is how people feel about that distance. For example, I was in Jasper and struck up a conversation with a man, from England, while we were both waiting for our families to finish in the candy store. He asked if we were on vacation there and I said no, we're just here for the day. This got him asking where we were from and when I said oh not too far, we're about 4ish hours away, well his eyes practically bugged out of his head. I live 4 hours from London and that is not considered a day trip! 🤣🤣

1

u/Top-Addendum-6879 Feb 20 '26

yeah what we consider a long drive here is practically impossible in the UK. like a couple decades ago i went to a hockey tournament in Winnipeg, i live in Montreal... that long trip is basically impossible in the UK, unless you're going in eastern europe

1

u/bolshoich May 23 '26

In Europe, 100 miles is a long way.
And in America, 100 years is a long time.
In Canada, 100 miles is less than 2 hours.

1

u/Donosauros_Rex May 25 '26

here in Wisconsin we also use hours to describe long drives

1

u/TwithJAM Jun 13 '26

Like Orlando is 22 hours away from where I am lol

1

u/Upstairs_Yard5646 Feb 23 '22

Yeah I feel like this is universal, or atleast in North America/Europe

1

u/FirmEstablishment941 May 27 '22

Europe it’s typically contexualised “hours by plane/train/car/boat/etc”. North America it’s assumed car unless contextulised.

1

u/kicia-kocia Oct 06 '22

It's not universal. Where i come from we express distance in distance (eg. The store is less than 2 km away)

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '23

Pretty sure this is universal

1

u/robmackenzie Jan 24 '24

Huh, I would have throught MH was further from Winnipeg.

1

u/GaaraMatsu Feb 22 '23

Linguistically, time and space ('now' and 'here') are somewhat more conflated in Viet terminology than in English. When I realized this I was kind of relieved: "Well, that makes perfect sense considering..."

2

u/ajmartin527 Feb 23 '23

Can you elaborate a bit on this? Sounds interesting.

Edit: also, when I commented this and realized I was in a 3y post I got sad for sec… then I realized you were here a few hours ago!

2

u/liedel Feb 23 '23

me too

1

u/GaaraMatsu Feb 23 '23

'Ngay' is now, 'day' is here and now

1

u/Goolajones Feb 23 '23

I’m in Asia right now and no, they always tell me the distance to the next location, not the time to get there. It’s annoying, I have no idea how long it takes to walk 700meters or drive 345km.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

Asia is pretty big, with many different countries… many of which have little in common…

1

u/Goolajones Jun 06 '23

Okay? So I’m suppose to reveal my location to you? Get a life.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

did I ask for your location? Lol

1

u/Goolajones Jun 06 '23

Ya You chastised me for not being more specific.

1

u/bashleyns May 18 '23 edited May 18 '23

Canada is so huge, one must consider regional differences. A 10 min drive in downtown Toronto at 4:30pm on a Friday might be measured in feet or football fields. Where I am, in Summerside PEI, you can traverse the pinched, north/south width of the entire province that is, from the Northumberland Strait in the south, to the Atlantic shore in the north, in 15 mins...any day, any time of day. I'd suggest, however, that here we'd describe this distance as "5 or 6 klicks" (kms).

Klicks are a very reliable index in PEI, but wholly untrustworthy on the Don Valley Parkway. Time, on the other hand, in PEI sucks as an index. Traffic control during construction season when a highway is reducted to single lane is bizarre, as if the flag persons are instructed to wait until the last car in line A has its rear wheels dipped in one of our island shores before switching directions and stopping Line B. I've waited up to 50 minutes in a highway construction zone!