learned vs. learnt

Question

What's the difference between learned and learnt?

Paco2004 · Accepted Answer

Learned and learnt are basically the same. They are both used as the past tense form and past participle of "learned".

I made a Google search for both the words and the results are:

EDU(USA) sites : I learned/learnt 611,000/12,300 I have learned/learnt 162,000/52,100 learned man/learnt man 6530/4
UK sites : I learned/learnt 19,300/13,400 I have learned/learnt 67,800/52,300 learned man/learnt man 4060/3

American speakers mostly use "learned" for the past and the verbal past participle, while "learned" and "learnt" share roughly equal among British speakers.
"Learnt" is used as an adjectival past participle in neither American English nor British English.

Anonymous · Answer

learnt is british
learned is american

Anonymous · Answer

That's not true. This is a false over-simplification.

Learned is the past participle (perfect and passive) and learnt is the (perfect) past tense.

Simple to remember general rule: participles end with "ed", e.g. walked, jogged, typed and so on. There are countless exceptions (e.g. spoken, eaten) because this is English, but as a general rule when you have the "ed" vs "t" dilemma at the end of a word, "ed" is participle, "t" is past tense.

Sometimes the pronunciation differs, e.g. "Last night I dreamt of San Pedro" vs "I had often dreamed of meeting the president". Even in this example, though, they are commonly both pronounced the same and regularly misused, as by ABBA: "I dreamed a dream".

The reason that the two exist more commonly in British English is because the custodians of the language are recognised in the British academies, such as Oxford and Cambridge and they seek to preserve the subtleties of the language. By contrast, since the mayhem generously bestowed on the language by Webster in the United States, American English seeks to simplify wherever possible, even at the cost of writing style, clarity and finer points.

In contemporary usage, it is difficult to say whether the language is used better in the American or British context: it's rather like choosing whether to be whipped or flayed. Neither general population speaks particularly well, and the written form is in a truly egregious way.

You can make a difference, though: by knowing how to do so, you can say what you mean.

Good luck with your studies of the English language!

Anonymous · Answer

Nice write up and extremely helpful too! Thank you!

learned vs. learnt

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