Re: learned/learnt

At 23:58:10 on Thu, 24 Nov 2005, apprentice <mailpawel@xxxxx> wrote in <53ecf$438646d4$d4ba586d$19898@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Is there any difference between those two? 

There can be, but there needn't be.

By which I mean that the verb "learned", when pronounced as one syllable, is pronounced with a "d" whereas "learnt" is pronounced with a "t", but they both mean the same - roughly "acquired information or skill".

However, the adjective "learned", when pronounced as two syllables, means well-educated or well-informed - and there is no "learnt" equivalent.

I mean like with "often" that is pronunced in two ways, however, it doesn't
really matter which you use.

No, that's different. It's the same word, but differently pronounced in different dialects of English. You can find the same with words like "singer" (some use a soft "g" and some a hard one). That's not at all the same as "learnt" and "learned", which are more like "dreamt" (pronounced "dremt") and "dreamed" (pronounced "dreemed").
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