[Vocabulary] I believe you are right / I think you are right.

[englishhobby]

Are they absolutely identical in meaning?
:?:

 

[Rover_KE]

To me, the former expresses greater certainty.

 

[englishhobby]

To me, the former expresses greater certainty.

So, can we say that "I believe you are right" = "You are certainly right" while
"I think you are right" means someting like "You must be right"?

 

[bhaisahab]

So, can we say that "I believe you are right" = "You are certainly right" while
"I think you are right" means someting like "You must be right"?

No, I don't think you can say that.

 

[Rover_KE]

So, can we say that "I believe you are right" = "You are certainly right" while
"I think you are right" means someting like "You must be right"?​

​

No — I didn't say that.

'I believe you are right' = 'To the best of my knowledge you are right'.

'I think you are right' = 'My opinion is that you are right'.

 

[konungursvia]

To me, the former expresses greater certainty.

I agree completely that they express different levels of certainty, but here, "I believe" is generally less certain than "I think" -- or rather, "I think" can go very strong, if you stress the pronoun, and quite moderate, if you stress both of the first two words equally, or favour the verb.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I agree completely that they express different levels of certainty, but here, "I believe" is generally less certain than "I think" -- or rather, "I think" can go very strong, if you stress the pronoun, and quite moderate, if you stress both of the first two words equally, or favour the verb.

In my opinion, "believe" is stronger than "think". And yes, spoken stress can make a difference.

 

[5jj]

"I believe" is generally less certain than "I think" -- or rather, "I think" can go very strong, if you stress the pronoun, and quite moderate, if you stress both of the first two words equally, or favour the verb.

I believe you are right' = 'To the best of my knowledge you are right'.

'I think you are right' = 'My opinion is that you are right'.

In my opinion, "believe" is stronger than "think". And yes, spoken stress can make a difference.

Confused, englishhobby?

I think that these answers reflect the fact that there is no clear answer to your question. Different people have different ideas. My own opinion, and it's no more 'right' than anybody else's, is that there is no significant difference in meaning between 'think' and 'believe' in your sentence except for any that may be conveyed by word-stress and intonation.