why not past tense?

Question

everyone says " i will check your profile and let you know what i think " is correct but i think " what i thought" is ok too

because,,,if you put yourself in the future ,"what you think" will be the past,,,,you think something and then let the person know what you THOUGHT???

its confusing?

Answer 1

Here, "what I thought" might be misinterpreted to mean that when the person read it, they thought about it a certain way, but now they might not. If I say, "When I read the letter, I thought it was written by my friend" it implies that now I think it might not have been written by her. If I say "I read the letter. I think it was written by my friend," it's clear that I still think that (and probably did when I read it too). Using the past tense suggests that there might've been a change of opinion since then.

Or to put it in the future, when they reply, they will be telling you what they think at the moment when they reply. It's irrelevant whether or not it will have been their initial impression at the moment they read it.

So it's less confusing to put it in the present tense.

Answer 2

The action of "checking" someone's profile hasn't happened yet. Therefore, you cannot have an opinion about something you haven't looked at yet. You are saying, "...and let you know what I think [at that moment]"

Answer 3

"I will check your profile and let you know what I thought" is not idiomatic. We report our present thoughts, not our past thoughts.

If this or another answer here proves helpful in your research, you can encourage good answers by choosing one answer as the "best answer."

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 4

Depends on the context.

If the original question was, "What do you think of my answers?" then the response would state "... what I think."

If the question was, "What DID you think of my answers?" a more appropriate answer might be "... what I thought." as if I had to look up your answers to remind myself of my original impressions.