How do you say "thought" (verb) in Chinese?

[yakeyglee]

I have been told that 想不加了 (i.e., that you can't really say 想了). However, what if you want to emphasize that in the past you thought one thing, but now don't think the same way? Like "I thought that he was a mean person" (but now I don't). What about accomplishing the same task instead with 覺得? I want to emphasize not only the past tense, but also the fact that it's a change of state. Thanks!

[dwq]

How about 我曾經覺得…… (I once thought……)？

[Hugh]

I think “我以为……" would express this in a lot of contexts. It means "to think" (as in to believe something to be true), but usually implies that the belief was mistaken. So you could say "以前，我以为他很小气" 

 

Or I think you could just explicitly say that you used to think something, as dwq said. A less formal version of "我曾經覺得" might be "以前，我觉得……".

 

Note that there isn't a change of state with sentence expressing a past belief. You used to believe that. It's still the case that you used to believe that. Also, as far as I know, you usually don't use change of state with psychological verbs like 觉得.

 

I try to remind myself that Chinese doesn't have past tense, and that I don't need to 'make up' for that by trying to work it in. It should be clear in the context.

[tooironic]

以為 (以为) yǐwéi

[skylee]

Re 以為 mentioned in #3.  This thread is relevant -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/42733-difference-between-%E4%BB%A5%E4%B8%BA%E3%80%81%E8%AE%A4%E4%B8%BA%E3%80%81%E8%A7%89%E5%BE%97%E3%80%81%E6%83%B3%E3%80%82/