I've heard it said that each language in the world embodies its own universe. Maybe I will always be confused by that idea to a certain extent; maybe not. But I have noted something in the German language which doesn't apply to my mother tongue of English that made me think of the same. It's to do with one of the tenses in German.

A proper translation of English "She said that Keith had gone to the party" in German would be "Sie hat gesagt, Keith wäre zur Party gegangen." I can't help noticing that, in the German translation, the auxiliary verb is subjunctival whereas this is not the case in English. It's as if the (hypothetical) person saying the German version exudes more prudence than the one saying the English version. Somehow, it's like the person saying the German version is allowing for the possibility of mistaken identity (consciously or otherwise - and this is just one example); but there is no reflection of that with the English sentence above. Not that I have any reason to believe that the Germans are particularly careful people.

An interesting idea to remember, or airy-fairy sophistry? If you quickly got bored reading this, then all I can say is that this is what a lifetime of studying and employing foreign language skills does to you.