AmE or BrE ?

[Juliusestella]

Hi Mentors,

Please help me about this:

Is it really true that LEARNT is BrE and LEARNED is AmE? If no, what is the difference?

Thank you in Advance.

Julius,

[Beeesneees]

No, that's not strictly the case. Both are used in BrE.
There's no difference. It's just an alternative spelling.
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Cheers m' dears!

[Juliusestella]

Ahh I see. Thank you so much!

[Jamie (K)]

In the United States, a few dialects have "learnt", but here it sounds to many people like uneducated, uncultured speech, and so schoolteachers try to get the children out of the habit of saying it.

So if "learned" is acceptable in the UK, then you might as well go with that one, because "learnt" is a stigmatized form in the US.

[Torsten]

What do you mean 'it sounds uneducated'. Are you saying that 'learned' and 'learnt' are pronounced differently?

TOEIC listening, talks: Announcement about new rail station

[Jamie (K)]

Yes, they are pronounced quite differently, but people with German accents and some other accents can't hear it, because they devoice the D at the end of "learned". "Learnt" is pronounced with a short vowel and ends in a T sound. "Learned" is pronounced with a longer vowel and ends in a D sound. We can hear it quite clearly, and teachers correct the kids.

They also correct them when they say "spilt" and "spelt", but "burnt" is quite acceptable here, and nobody corrects the kids on that form. I think it's because to Americans if something is "burnt" it's more completely incinerated than something that's merely "burned".

[Mister Micawber]

The spelling oｒ the pronunciation? The American Heritage Dictionary lists them as alternative spellings, Jamie.
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Jamie (K)]

Yes, they're listed as alternate spellings, but they're also pronounced differently, and it's easy to hear.

When I showed one of my university classes that "learnt" is standard English in the UK, they were shocked and told me, "If da teachuhz heard us say dat in school, day gonna think we STUPID!"

[Alan]

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Hi,

Stupid/uneducated or not there is a difference in spelling and pronunciation but both are acceptable in the little ol' UK!

Alan
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[Jamie (K)]

Sometimes both forms of a word are accepted in one of the countries, while only one is accepted in the other.

The pronunciation of "ate" as [ɛt] is also stigmatized in the US. It sounds hillbilly to us. If "Antigua" is pronounced [æntɪɡyuwə], that sounds to us like a small child just learning how to read.

[Alan]

Jamie,

I get the impression from your comments here and indeed in the past that people in your country are hypercritical about the way people speak although obviously there must be a huge diversity of accents there. Is this a general attitude or is it just in your community?

Alan
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[Jamie (K)]

I am less critical of other people's accents than the typical American walking down the street. When I say Americans stigmatize some pronunciation or other, it doesn't mean that I necessarily stigmatize it, but that Americans in general do. As in the UK, some people criticize pronunciations that they unwittingly use themselves. Anyway, I tolerate a lot of pronunciations that most other Americans consider signs of ignorance, such as when blacks or Southerners say, "Don't axe me!" a pronunciation with a long proud history going back centuries.

I also actually enjoy some people's nonstandard speech. One of my favorites was when a judge asked a man on TV, "Are you seeing anyone now?" and he emphatically replied, "I ain't got NAY a woman!" -- straight out of the 15th century. I sometimes try to convince transplanted Southerners to stop trying to "fix" their speech. They're ashamed when they find themselves pronouncing a certain way, using double modals or using expressions like "I rightly think...", but I think it's fine.

Once I bawled out a student because she adamantly insisted she would rather risk waiting than be operated on by a surgeon with a Southern accent. To me that was insane.

However, I do find a few of the posher British pronunciations to be somewhat bizarre, in particular those that involve spelling pronunciation of foreign words, like Buy-zan-tyne Empire or Nica-ragg-yoo-a. When we hear those in the States, we think the person hasn't learned to read well. Recently some Brit found it horrid that I pronounced "Antigua" as [æntɪɡwa] instead of [æntiɡ yu a], but in the US that British spelling pronunciation would be assumed to indicate poor literacy.

[Beeesneees]

The pronunciation of Antigua [æntiɡ yu a] in that way would be considered poor in the UK too!
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[Jamie (K)]

This Brit thought it was the only correct way to say it. He was an educated man, so I just took his word for it.

[Beeesneees]

That's not so unusual, so maybe it would be wise not to generalise. It's akin to deciding that all Americans mis-pronounce 'Edinburgh'.
No matter how well-educated people are, unless they have heard the specific name being pronounced correctly, they just don't recognise the error.
I know educated people who would mis-pronounce people/place names such as Cholmondeley, Bicester, Tintwistle or Mousehole.... oh, and Woolfardisworthy.
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Cheers m' dears!