Your books are two pounds...,

[Silverobama]

I was about to send some books to a friend. The weight limit is two pounds, so if the package weighs more than that, you have to pay extra. The staff member told me this after she weighed my books.

Your books are two pounds overweight.

Is my translation natural?

 

[emsr2d2]

I was about to send some books to a friend. The weight limit is two pounds, so if the package weighs more than that, you have to pay extra. The staff member told me this the following after she weighed my books.

Your books are parcel is two pounds overweight.

Is my translation natural?

See above. You could also say "Your parcel is two pounds over the weight limit".

Two things:
1. What do you mean by "The staff member"? You haven't mentioned a business/company/shop up to this point so we have no idea who this person is. You need to preface it with something like "When I took my parcel to the post office, the clerk said ..."
2. How did she know what was in the parcel? Presumably you packaged them up before taking them to the post office so unless she's got X-ray vision, she would have no way of knowing that you were sending books.

 

[5jj]

Your books are two pounds overweight.

Was the parcel two pounds over the limit, or just over the two-pound limit?

 

[Rover_KE]

Are imperial weights and measures customarily used in China rather than metric ones?

 

[Silverobama]

Two things:
1. What do you mean by "The staff member"?

The person who works in the parcel station.

You haven't mentioned a business/company/shop up to this point so we have no idea who this person is. You need to preface it with something like "When I took my parcel to the post office, the clerk said ..."

Hmm, right here in China, the business is so thriving that almost every place people live has its own station to send parcels and get parcels.

2. How did she know what was in the parcel?

Hmm, I just gave her the books and she would do the packing herself.

Presumably you packaged them up before taking them to the post office so unless she's got X-ray vision, she would have no way of knowing that you were sending books.

Things are very different from place to place, emsr2d2. And I think such things will become more common in the UK within 1-2 years.

Was the parcel two pounds over the limit, or just over the two-pound limit?

The parcel weighed four pounds, and the limit of parcel (without extra payment) is 2 pounds. This means I need to pay more for this extra two pounds.

Are imperial weights and measures customarily used in China rather than metric ones?

I used the word "pounds" because I don't want to complicate things for people here who want to help you or they have to look up what Jin means in Chinese and then answer my question. I don't want to waste people's time.

 

[emsr2d2]

The person who works in the parcel station.

OK, but that wasn't clear.

Hmm, right here in China, the business is so thriving that almost every place people live has its own station to send parcels and get parcels.

What business?

Hmm, I just gave her the books and she would do the packing herself.

OK, that also wasn't clear. I've never come across such a service.

Things are very different from place to place, emsr2d2.

I'm aware of that but even so, I assumed post offices and parcel dropoff points were pretty similar the world over.

And I think such things will become more common in the UK within 1-2 years.

Why? Most people in the UK are more worried about everything becoming automated and robots taking people's jobs. It's more likely that the staff member in question here will be out of a job rather than taking on the additional responsibility of packing up other people's parcels. If such a service does exist in the UK, I'm certain that people would be charged extra for it.

The parcel weighed four pounds, and the weight limit of parcels (without extra payment) is 2 pounds. This means I need to pay more for this extra two pounds.

See above.

I used the word "pounds" because I don't want to complicate things for people here who want to help you or they have to look up what Jin means in Chinese and then answer my question. I don't want to waste people's time.

The conversion is really easy. 1 jin = 500 grams so 2 jins = 1 kilo. You could have either explained what a jin is and used the local term, or done it in kilos.

 

[5jj]

There are only three countries in the world that don't use the metric system at least partly.

 

[SoothingDave]

Even the US uses the metric system partially. We buy soda pop in 2-liter bottles. We buy handguns using 9 mm ammunition.

 

[Silverobama]

What business?

Put simply, people can run parcel dropoff points as a business.

I'm aware of that but even so, I assumed post offices and parcel dropoff points were pretty similar the world over.

You are absolutely right, we can also mail and receive parcels in post offices here. Well, we just have more options to deal with the parcels we want to send and receive because everyone is purchasing things online nowadays.

Why? Most people in the UK are more worried about everything becoming automated and robots taking people's jobs. It's more likely that the staff member in question here will be out of a job rather than taking on the additional responsibility of packing up other people's parcels. If such a service does exist in the UK, I'm certain that people would be charged extra for it.

Because it's very convenient and it has nothing to do with replacing people's positions or taking anyone's job. Why? because the points require real people to take charge of them.

And you might check this video out on Youtube, a woman from Africa said the parcels would be stolen within two minutes in her country while it was quite safe to put parcels next to where they live in China. Usually there's a dropoff point and we need a code to get our parcel, but also one can get their parcel shown in this video.

 

[emsr2d2]

Because it's very convenient and it has nothing to do with replacing people's positions or taking anyone's job. Why? because the points require real people to take charge of them.

I think you misunderstood my "Why?" You said you thought these businesses where you take your goods and someone else parcels them up will become common in the UK in the next couple of years. I was asking why you think that. I simply explained that things are already going the other way in the UK. We have fewer real people doing such jobs and automation is already taking over. That's just going to continue to expand. The chances of the people who work in post offices and parcel points being asked to package up people's goods in addition to the work they're already doing is slim to none.
I can assure you that online shopping is huge in the UK. We can have parcels delivered to our home, our office, a friend's house, a post office, a local authorised shop and large variety of secure lockers. When we need to return something we've ordered, we have fewer options. We have to parcel the goods up ourselves and take them to a post office with a returns barcode or leave them in a designated locker.
If we sell something online (a couple of books, for example), it doesn't matter by what method we send those books to the buyer, we have to wrap them or put them in a box ourselves before taking the parcel to the post office/handing it to the courier etc.