German/English Grammar (and other languages)

I have noticed something something when learning German.

In English, we say "I think he went to the mall."
In German, we say "Ich glaube, er ging in die Mall." Is this okay to say in German? I saw it in a textbook, once.

It seems like "I think" is a main clause, and "he went to the mall" is also a main clause.

Am I missing something, is there a subordinate conjunction that is left out? What connects these two into one sentence?

If one of them isn't acting as a main clause and as something else, what is it? I am thinking people familiar with languages would know about this. Is this only okay in English?

"I think, he went to the mall" isn't really doable in English. Replacing the punctuation here to "I think." or "I think..." would resolve the issue by highlighting the first clause as in reference to a previous question or supposition. ex: "Is he out of the house?"

>>2
From what I've learned, it shouldn't be doable, and yet I hear many and many people speak like that and write like that.

I've also heard: "I believe he is 16 years old," and "She thinks she is good at soccer."

I think that he went to the mall.

I believe that he is 16 years old.

She thinks that she is good at soccer.

>>4
I was thinking that aswell. I was thinking that the second parts are just subordinate conjunctions, and that the subordinate conjunctions were just left out and implied.

>>5
"That", in most cases, is entirely unnecessarily. "I think..." and "I think that..." are essentially the same and have no difference or effect in meaning.

>>6
That makes sense. Do you know if this happens in other languages also? I've only seen it once in a different language, when my textbook was comparing "I think he went to the mall" in English to German.

Maybe it's only in English, and my book was showing the difference of how we leave out the subordinate conjunction.

Does this only happen in English? Thank you for replying.

It happens in Italian as well: "I think it's time to go" could be translated either as "credo sia ora di andare", without conjunction, or "credo che sia ora di andare", where the conjunction, the English "that" is "che".

>>8
Thank you.

Also, for "I think that it's time to go" and "I believe she is 16 years old," Is "That" acceptable in those situations, even though it's a relative pronoun and it's not replacing anything in the previous clause?

Is there a better way to join the two clauses?

>>6

Maybe it's similar to what you can do in Japanese

If you wanna ask "did you ate that candy" you'd
say:

Sonno okashi ha tabeta ka? -> That candy, did you eat?

But you can also say:

Tabeta ka? Sonno okashi -> which would be something similar to Did you eat? That candy.

>>9

Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu)


I said that you were beautiful:

'Main ne kaha ke aap khoobsoorat hain'

(I by said that you beautiful are)


I said you were beautiful:

'Main ne aap khoobsoorat hain kaha'

(I by you beautiful are said)


Strange...

>>11
>>11

I meant 'you are beautiful'.

'Were' would be 'thi/the' instead of 'hain'.

My bad, English has it's own peculiarities, whereby the past can represent the present in cerain contexts.

Fun stuff.

>>10

1. "sonno" isn't a word, it's "sono"
2. You want "wo" instead of "ha" or else you would be asking if the candy ate
3. I don't think OP is talking about inverted sentences

>>10
>>11
>>12

Thank you.

Anyone?

>>15
What?