[michèle 2]

Hi everyone?

Tom has an English lesson or Tom has an English class?
Are both correct?
Is "lesson" British English and "class" American English?
For driving, piano, I wouldn't use class.
Am i right?
thanks for your help

[susan53]

Both are fine Michèle. Maybe class is used more in AmEng than in BrEng but I think it's a matter of frequency rather than one or the other - I'd say both.

[michèle 2]

Thanks a lot, Susan.

[simplyesl]

I use both... but I think I use class more. But then again I'm a teacher and I don't say "I have an English Class" I just say I have a class.

[mesmark]

I say both but I probably use 'class' more.

If you google for frequency, you get

"English class" - 1,240,000 hits
"English lesson" - 665,000 hits

"piano class" - 123,000 hits
"piano lesson" - 509,000 hits

"math class" - 1,010,000 hits
"math lesson" - 338,000 hits

[susan53]

Quote mesmark

If you google for frequency, you get

"English class" - 1,240,000 hits
"English lesson" - 665,000 hits

I think it might be a UK/US thing. I've just repeated your search and obviously got more or less the same numbers - ie a ratio of class 2: 1 lesson.

But I then did it again restricting the search to UK websites - and therefore presumably British English - only and got :

English class 104,000
English lesson 95,000

ie a (very approximately) ratio of 7:6

So class still wins, but as I suspected, there's a big difference in frequency of use between the UK and "the rest of the world".
Does Google have a US site where you can restrict to US websites only? Or someone might like to try Australia and other English speaking countries and see what happens.