From

[Xinfu]

-The quality of being clear of this essay was something John could learn __.

Is it correct English to use 'from'? I think it wrong, because we learn sth, not from sth.

[Rusty]

We can both learn something and learn from something.

John was learning the quality of being clear. He learned it from reading the essay.

[Xinfu]

We can both learn something and learn from something.

John was learning the quality of being clear. He learned it from reading the essay.

Thanks for the reply. But the example you have here has 'it' between 'learned' and 'from', which structure is different from 'learn from' (=intransitive). Do you mean 'learn from sth' is generally possible but not correct in my sentence in the first post? I would have thought it wrong to use from, because when it comes to a quality, succinctness, lucidity, etc., the verb, I thought, should be simply learn, not learn from.

[Rusty]

The object 'it' refers to 'the quality of being clear' in my sentence.

Rewritten, my sentence is 'John could learn the quality of being clear from the essay'.

He is learning something by/from reading the essay.


But, we can also learn from something. If we burn our fingers on something, we learn from that experience to not touch the hot item again.
Applying this idea of learning from something, it isn't out of the question that John had an experience with the quality of being clear that he learned from.

[Xinfu]

Excellent answer. Thank you.