Which is correct and why?
Ich denke, wir sollten auf die Party gehen.
or
Ich denke, dass wir auf die Party gehen sollten.
Thanks.
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Side note: English I think becomes Ich glaube in German. Denken is understood as to put a lot of though into it.– JankaCommented Oct 16, 2022 at 7:38
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"Ich finde" would also be fitting here.– HalvarFCommented Oct 16, 2022 at 9:27
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2 Answers
Both are completely correct, both forms are in use, just like in English.
The form with "dass" is a little bit more wordy, but not much. In the informal setting that the example suggests, the first version is a bit more likely. When you write an essay or a scientific paper and want everything to be as clear and unambiguous as possible, you might tend to rather use the syntax with "dass". Both forms are correct and accepted in every situation though.
They are both correct and also have the same semantic. The key difference here is that the sentence with "dass" can't stand for itself. It's a so called "Nebensatz", while the sentence without "dass" can stand for itself.
This would be grammatically correct, not so much semantically.
Ich denke. Wir sollten auf die Party gehen.
This would be grammatically incorrect:
Ich denke. Dass wir auf die Party gehen sollten.
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Be aware that the key difference is not the word "dass" but the word order. The second sentence can't stand for itself because the verbs are at the end, "...gehen sollten.". The word "dass" is only a hint that this is a "Nebensatz" and can't stay for itself.
