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Merriam-Webster marks learnt as "chiefly British", and Wiktionary as "UK", adding that learned is the "Standard US English spelling". Quoting a linguist's comment from elsewhere, [The Corpus of Historical American English] shows that learned has always been more common than learnt in American English. At least, since 1810.
Sep 3, 2014 · 4. To learn of something means to discover its existence (the depth of knowledge is restricted to knowing the thing exists). For example, if I learn of the meteor shower tonight, all I know is that there will be a meteor shower tonight. To learn about something means to discover any amount of knowledge of the thing (the exact depth of knowledge ...
Jul 11, 2012 · 2. (1) Original sense: learn how to ≠ learn to. One should make a distinction between the original sense of the structure learn how to and the common, colloquial, modern use of the structure learn how to. Originally, the expressions learn to do and learn how to do used to be quite distinct in meaning.
Jul 29, 2015 · The past tense of learn is either learned or learnt. My daughter learned/learnt "The Owl and the Pussy Cat" by heart. The same goes for the past participle. However when using it as an adjective it is usual to say learned (pronounced learn-ed) as in The learned judge passed sentence. –
Aug 21, 2016 · Note that "learnt" is not idiomatic in (most of) the US. You would use "learned". 'Today I learnt' is more appropriate as we are not taking about an event that has just happened but is in the process of occuring. Note perfect tense is used to describe events that have just been completed.
Apr 10, 2023 · Given the important frequency of "learned" with respect to "learnt", it seems unlikely that "learned" could have been considered childish or even incorrect to some degree. This is confirmed by the even greater relative frequency that is shown in anterior periods in the following bigram.
Jan 28, 2004 · Either "learnt" or "learned" are used interchangably in phrases like "I learnt a valuable lesson today". The *descriptive* answer in American English is: There is no such word as "learnt". Use "learned" always. Whilst I agree with most of your post, I must take issue with the term "British English".
Apr 13, 2013 · 1. Autodidact should be avoided at all costs. I may be one, but no one understands Greek. I would prefer self-taught. It's English in origin, gets the idea across, and it's in common use. That's the best of all worlds - you'll be understood. Share. Improve this answer.
Similarly, I've always thought that learned is, strictly speaking, only acceptable as the past tense of the verb to learn, and that if one wanted to refer to the adjective form meaning "educated", as in learned scholar, it would properly be spelt as learnèd. I don't remember where exactly I got these impressions from, and I don't know if they are correct.
What I learned today was that I like asparagus. What I learned during the 2 week course was invaluable.... whereas "what I've learned" is more general, or at least refers to a longer time period, eg.: What I've learned in life is to avoid poisonous snakes. What I've learned at college is that kids don't like to learn.
