> I knew that you were/are an angel

I thought about using the te-form and then simply chain the two sentences "I
knew" and "you are an angel" together.

> (私は)知りまして、君は天使です

I'm not quite sure for the casual form, but my guess would be 知て. (shiru, drop
ru, add ta, drop ta, add te)

However, google translating that back into English yielded "I know that you
are an angel", which is the present tense form, and with this kind of sentence
just happens to have a completely different implied meaning.

Google translating the English sentence into Japanese however, yielded the
following, which I do not understand: あなたが天使であることは分かっていた.

I get that "あなたが天使である" includes the "being/are" meaning of the sentence, while
I above only ended with "です". So the difference in meaning when using desu and
aru would be my first question.

Furthermore, there is no te form or sentence chaining involved here - From
what I get, こと converts the whole previous verb into a noun, so now we have
this huge "you're an angel" - noun?

Then, the 分かって part seems more intuitive, simply being the past form of I
understand. (although I'm not sure why we aren't using shiru here).

Finally, the last part, いた, has me lost, to be honest.

So, my second question would be on how I can properly understand the Google
Translate translation, whether it is right or not, and whether there are any
better alternatives or not.

Finally, my last question is about sentence chaining in general: How do we
know what part comes first? Assume my translation above was correct for a
moment, instinctively I put the "I know" part first. But I can see that in
fact, the know part should come last as it is the true verb of the sentence.
What about more complex sentences? And finally, why would the following be
wrong/unnatural: 君は天使でして私は知りました
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question
grammar translation past subordinate-clauses
Chaining sentences, and past form
Let me start with your second question,

> So, my second question would be on how I can properly understand the
> googletranslate translation, whether it is right or not, and whether there
> are any better alternatives or not.

For the sentence,

> I knew that you were/are an angel.

the google translation you got,

> あなたが天使であることは分かっていた.

is correct. It's a natural Japanese expression. Other possibility will be

>   * 私はあなたが天使だと知っていた。
>   * 私はあなたが天使であると知っていた。
>   * 私はあなたが天使であることを知っていた。
>

You can omit '私は' (and in fact it's more natural to omit it). You can change
'知っていた' to '分かっていた', and the meaning will be the same. In the last expression,
you can replace 'ことを' with 'ことは'.

Now let me address this part:

> Finally, the last part, いた, has me lost, to be honest.

Basically, '知っていた' and '分かっていた' mean '(I) knew', i.e., to '知る' and to '分かる' in
the past. Grammatically, the past tense of these verbs are '知った' and '分かった',
but these emphasize the action or event of knowing something in the past. In
other words, it is closer to "I got to know that you are an angel (at that
time)." or "I realized that .. (at that time).", rather than "I have had the
knowledge that you are an angle (since that time)." The part 'いた' adds this
sense of continuity. '知っていた' is made of the words '知る'+'て'+'いる'+'た', and they
mean 'to know'+'(and)'+'to be'+'(past)', or 'have been (or was) in the state
of knowing', or 'have had the knowledge', which is usually expressed more
simply as '(I) knew (something)' in English.

Next, let me address this part:

> Furthermore, there is no te form or sentence chaining involved here - From
> what I get, こと converts the whole previous verb into a noun, so now we have
> this huge "you're an angel" - noun?

Yes, 'こと' makes the huge noun. Here it makes the noun clause, 'the fact that
you are an angel'. The word 'こと' means 'fact', 'thing', 'event', etc. I think
that the correspondence between 'the fact that ..' and '..こと' holds quite
generally, and that it is useful to remember it.

Now, we need to talk about this part:

> I get that "あなたが天使である" includes the "being/are" meaning of the sentence,
> while I above only ended with "です". So the difference in meaning when using
> desu and aru would be my first question.

To make the noun clause corresponding to 'the fact that you are an angel' from
'あなたが天使です' and 'こと', we need to conjugate the (auxiliary) verb 'です' to the
noun 'こと'. Probably the conjugated form of 'です' to continue to a noun is also
'です' (i..e, the same as the form to end the sentence), but for some reason
it's rare to hear 'ですこと' (except in the cliche of a snobbish madam exclaiming
something, as far as I can imagine). Instead, people start from a different
expression 'あなたが天使である' and 'こと'. The noun conjugation form of '(で)ある' is again
'(で)ある' (i.e., the same as the ending form), and the combination becomes
'あなたが天使であること'. So, to answer your question, there is essentially no difference
between です and (で)ある in the meaning, but the latter is a preferred form when
conjugating with a noun including こと. In addition, です is the polite form while
(で)ある is the regular form. [You can make a polite noun clause as
'あなたが天使でありますこと' by changing (で)ある to (で)あります.]

Next, let me address this part:

> Finally, my last question is about sentence chaining in general: How do we
> know what part comes first? Assume my translation above was correct for a
> moment, instinctively I put the "I know" part first. But I can see that in
> fact, the know part should come last as it is the true verb of the sentence.
> What about more complex sentences? And finally, why would the following be
> wrong/unnatural: 君は天使でして私は知りました

Generally, a Japanese sentence ends with a verb. Examples are:

>   * I **know** something. -> 私はsomethingを **知っている** 。
>   * I **run**. -> 私は **走る** 。
>   * I **throw** a ball. -> 私はボールを **投げる** 。
>   * I **speak** Japanese. -> 私は日本語を **話す** 。
>   * I **am** an angel. -> 私は天使 **である** 。
>

The reason why your sentence '君は天使でして私は知りました' is wrong/unnatural because it
does not reflect the semantic structure that '(the fact that) you are an
angel' is the object of the verb 'know'. To reflect the meaning correctly, you
need to make a noun clause out of 'you are an angel' as explained above.

Now, instead of making the noun clause as 'the fact that ..', you can make a
noun clause simply as 'that ..'. This corresponds to '..と'. For example, the
sentence 'あなたは(が)天使だ' can be made to a noun clause as 'あなたは（が）天使だと' and then
can be connected to a verb. Another example is

>   * She said that **she is 129 years old**. -> 彼女は、 **(彼女は)129歳だ** と言った。
>

In this way, you can avoid inserting 'the fact' when it distorts the meaning
that you want to deliver. To conjugate to 'と', the preceeding verb should be
in the form for ending the sentence. So, you can literally take one sentence
and throw it into another one.

Finally, let me address about combining sentences with 'て', which was your
initial target of practice. Examples of using 'て' are

>   * I run, and she walks. -> 私は走って、彼女は歩く。
>   * It's dark, and it's dangerous. -> 暗くて、危ない。
>

You can generally combine two senteces with 'て' when they are combined by
'and' in English.
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answer