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Is this sentence written correctly?

"If you had told me one year ago that I would be studying math, I would have said you were crazy."

I've heard a lot of people making the sentences with such meaning without past perfect but just past simple. Like: "If you told me one year ago that I would be studying math, I would have said you were crazy."

Is there a difference?

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    "If you had told me" often gets reduced to "If you'd told me" and, further, to "If you told me." Even if someone is trying to say "If you'd told me" it will sound like "If you told me" unless assiduously enunciated.
    – Robusto
    Aug 21, 2017 at 13:35
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    @Robusto: Of course, there's also Well, it's news to me. If you told me that a year ago, all I can say is I must have forgotten or I wasn't listening. No elided had there. Aug 21, 2017 at 14:41
  • @Fumble: Sure, except that is not the same usage as OP's example case.
    – Robusto
    Aug 21, 2017 at 15:56
  • @Robusto: I still think it's relevant. But your specific observation doesn't really make clear that the scope for "elision" in OP's example depends on both both the "awkwardness" of the full consonant transitions and the fact that told is an irregular past form. In the case of, for example, If I had / I'd [have?!] known you were coming I'd've baked a cake, no-one would dream of discarding had / 'd completely (and I suspect hardly anyone would stoop to If I knew you were coming in that "hypothetical past" context). Aug 21, 2017 at 16:21
  • @Fumble: It's relevant, perhaps, but only obliquely—as is your further comment. My comment was specific to the case at hand, not intended to be applied to all related or unrelated manifestations of grammar. I stand by what I said.
    – Robusto
    Aug 21, 2017 at 16:32

1 Answer 1

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If you had told me one year ago that I would be studying math, I would have said you were crazy.

Yes, it's correct (although we would be more likely to say "a year ago").

If you told me one year ago that I would be studying math, I would have said you were crazy.

This is a more informal variant that you're probably more likely to find in AmE than in BrE. It means exactly the same.

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