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Found this example sentence in one of the videos teaching Deutsch to beginners:
"Findest du das Baby süß?"
The translation given was:
"Do you think this baby is cute?".
But shouldn't it be something like:
"Do you find this baby cute"?
I don't see how the form of "to be" fits into the English translation given that it is absent in the original German sentence.
One of the common meanings of etwas finden is to have an opinion, to think. That's how the translation becomes Do you think that …
What does "Do you find this baby cute" even mean? From dictionary the best fit for "find" in this sentence is "to determine an issue after judicial inquiry". While "finden" in German in this case has a similar meaning (consider something to be true), it is too informal for a court case.
The German sentence might also be written as "Findest du, das Baby ist süß?", with an explicit source for "to be". You can even consider the original sentence a short form where "ist" was omitted.
It might also be proper English to say "Do you consider the baby cute", it is the same structure as this example "I consider the story improbable".
