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Latest post Sun, Sep 12 2004 2:29 PM by Jandi. 1 replies.
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Jandi  +  45296 Sun, 12 Sep 04 02:29 PM
Hello, teachers!

Would you please help me with this sentence?

- I just heard from my cousin that you [called/phoned/rang up] here yesterday.

1. I think the past perfect tense is also correct, but we usually use the simple past. Am I right?
2. I think we can use 'up', but actually it is not necessary. Am I right?
3. If we use 'called' instead of 'called up', it can also means 'visited'. Am I right?

Thank you very much.
Peace!
Joined on Tue, Sep 7 2004
Full Member 348
Guest, 5 yr 72 days ago
I am not a teacher but I'll try:

1. "called" in the past perfect and simple past operate in the usual rules, ex:

He called me yesterday.
He had called me before.

Though there is some leeway, so that informally I wouldn't consider "He'd called me yesterday" to be wrong.

2. I think you're right, but saying "rang up" to mean telephoned sounds more like British English than American English, so I'm not sure about proper usage.

3. I think you're trying to say "called on", like "I called on (visited) her this morning" However, it sounds quite formal and/or archaic to me, so I would just use "visited".

I do know that "called up" in the US means more like "selected" rather than "telephoned", and "phoned up" just sounds odd, though it would probably be understood clearly what you're trying to day.
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