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I read the following sentence in an English book :

How long have you learned Maths?

I wonder if the question below

How long ago did you learn Maths?

has the same meaning with the first sentence. If yes or no , would you mind explaining to me in detail, please.

apaderno
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Cinder Nguyen
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    Which book did you find that first sentence in? A native speaker would rarely utter that sentence. We'd use study. – Alan Carmack Apr 20 '16 at 22:09
  • would you mind telling me the difference between study and learn? I used to think that they are similar but when you said that learn is rarely used, i am really confused. – Cinder Nguyen Apr 21 '16 at 05:34

1 Answers1

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I don't think the two sentences have the same meaning, nor do they have the same intention of a speaker.

How long have you learned Maths?

The speaker wants to know the duration from (between) the time when you started to learn Maths and to (and) now. The answer would be "for X years or months" or else.

When did you start to learn Maths? (How long ago doesn't sound idiomatic and it is rarely used in English.)

The speaker wants to know the time when you started to learn Maths. (S)he is not interested in finding out the duration and it doesn't matter whether you stopped learning it in the past. The answer would be "X years or months ago", "in 2000", or "when I was 12", etc.

Ngram viewer: "When did you" vs "How long ago did you" in American English.

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    thanks for informative and useful answer. I think i understand more about past and present tense . – Cinder Nguyen Apr 20 '16 at 09:35
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    How long ago is perfectly fine depending on the situation and not exactly rare in AmE. "How long ago did domesticated dogs appear?" "How long ago did you quit smoking?" "How long ago was your last trip outside the country?" – ColleenV Apr 20 '16 at 17:10
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    @ColleenV "How long ago did you" is not as popular as "when did you" and it seems rare. –  Apr 20 '16 at 17:25
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    NGrams get a little tricky with 5 words. If you look over the results for "how long ago", it's not rare or archaic: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22how%20long%20ago%22&tbm=bks&lr=lang_en&gws_rd=ssl (It's not my DV btw) In this particular context, I would probably say "How long have you studied Maths?" and "How long ago did you study Maths?" "When did you" has a slightly different nuance to me, but I have to think about how to explain it. Most folks wouldn't see much difference between the two phrases though. – ColleenV Apr 20 '16 at 23:14
  • can you tell me difference ? I am very curious ^^ – Cinder Nguyen Apr 21 '16 at 07:38