Preterite or Imperfect for "I learnt something"?

Question

If I were to say: I learnt something(the something is small and was learned in a day)

would that be preterite.......or imperfect when translated into Spanish?

I think it's preterite but I'm not entirely sure....

Answer 1

You are correct, but it doesn´t matter if the thing learned is small or how long the process took. The fact that the time spent learning this thing is finished determines that the verb should be preterite.

Answer 2

but doesn't it matter that the thing I learnt was a one time thing rather than something that was being learnt on a daily basis(or some sort of scheduled learning thing)?

I believe you are right that the imperfect is appropriate in, say, "Cuando era joven, aprendía algo todos los días." - jtaniel, Jul 8, 2017

Maybe you studied on a daily basis "estudiaba" but you learned basically after the studies were finished "aprendí". If something else happened while you learned you could use imperfect, ie: Mientras aprendía,me di cuenta de varios libros sobre el tema - 005faa61, Jul 8, 2017

oh thank you - Manjari1339, Jul 8, 2017