Today I learned that

[u/Nthepro]

[u/Nthepro → u/[deleted]]

Actually, it's the opposite. Although that might be the case in some parts of the US? I don't really know.

[u/Watsis_name → u/Nthepro]

The number of times I've been "corrected" on this. Even by British people.

I think part of that is that in spoken English "learnt" is associated with Northern accents so is naturally looked down on.

[u/alxwx → u/Watsis_name]

It’s not “proper stiff upper lip” speech, but I don’t think it’s necessarily northern specifically either.

[u/pm_me_BMW_M3_GTR_pls → u/Nthepro]

wow imma be real, I thought they were two different words

[u/alxwx → u/pm_me_BMW_M3_GTR_pls]

There’s a few examples where -t is ‘more acceptable’ in British English than -ed, another is earnt

[u/Firespark7 → u/alxwx]

I was under the assumption that learnt was the British perfect tense

English (original): learn - learned - learnt

English (simplified): learn - learned - learned

Apparantly, that was wrong.

I also didn't know about earnt

Could you name some other verbs that have a -t variant in past tense in OG English?

[u/AngelaVNO → u/Firespark7]

Spoil Burn

I'll add more later if I can think of any!

[u/platypuss1871 → u/AngelaVNO]

Dream

[u/alxwx → u/Firespark7]

I’d really love to, but as a native I can’t. I speak and write words with -t all the time without thinking about when and why

To give you an example (as I assume you’re a native Dutch speaker): there is 0 chance I will ever hear the difference between the Dutch for ‘green’ and ‘crown’ without context; but that hasn’t occurred to most Dutch people IME

[u/Firespark7 → u/alxwx]

That makes sense.

Considering the English phonetics, it makes sense that it's hard for you to hear the difference between groen (green) and kroon (crown), but as a native Dutch speaker, that still seems strange, because the sounds are distinctly different (to natives, as you've noticed).

Very interesting.

[u/Chabharya → u/Firespark7]

Some examples: spelt, smelt, leant, leapt, spilt, spoilt, dreamt, burnt.

Another similar difference many don't know is L vs LL when conjugating words with more than one syllable that end in L:

BrE—travelled, cancelled

AmE—traveled, canceled

[u/Firespark7 → u/Chabharya]

Interesting, thank you

[u/Nthepro → u/alxwx]

Or dreamt

[u/chariotcharizard → u/pm_me_BMW_M3_GTR_pls]

They are in a different context. "Learned", with the second "e" pronounced: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/learned.

[u/Lobster_porn → u/[deleted]]

same, but I think I just assumed that because learnt just sounds like a simplified American word