Be better learned by vs. be learned better by?

Question

Many disciplines are better learned by entering into the doing than by mere abstract study.

q) If I change the above to "learned better by entering...", does it make any difference? When do you put better before "learned" and after "learned"?

Ross Murray · Answer

As already noted, 'better learned' does exist as something someone might say so you need 'learned better'.
You asked whether the placement of 'better' make any difference? It does for other past participles used as adjectives. For example, 'better educated' means the results of someone's education were better, but 'educated better' means the standard of the education given to them was better.
There are times you need to consider which of two words is the main idea and which is modifying the other word.

ruakh · Answer

They're mostly equivalent in meaning, except that the "better learned [&hellip;]" version is theoretically ambiguous between two different senses of "better":

It can mean roughly "more thoroughly": to learn something well is to learn it thoroughly, to know something well is to know it thoroughly, etc.

In this case, the sentence means that there are many disciplines that one can learn better by practicing them than by studying them in the abstract.

It can mean roughly "more good" (but as an adverb): "better him than me" means that I'd rather something (from the context) happened to him than to me.

In this case, the sentence means that there are many disciplines that it's better to learn by practicing them than by studying them in the abstract.

This can be a subtle distinction, since we generally consider it better to learn something better, so someone who agrees with the sentence under one interpretation will probably agree with it under the other as well. Nonetheless, we can tease apart the two senses by contrasting "Flavors are better learned by tasting them than by hearing them described, but I'm deathly allergic to peanuts, so I had to make do" with "I gather that you're deathly allergic to peanuts, so in your case I suppose the flavor is better learned by hearing it described than by actually tasting it!"

The "learned better [&hellip;]" version, however, doesn't have this ambiguity, because in that position "better" can only modify the verb phrase headed by "learned"; it can't modify the entire predicate. As a result, it can only have the "more thoroughly" sense.

Additionally, as Edwin Ashworth points out above, the version with "better learned" is much more common.

Be better learned by vs. be learned better by?

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