Quote Originally Posted by xXHoax View Post
I wanted to ask you what your beliefs are. - Это естественный способ на английском
This is actually interesting to me as I think it's a bit different here than what we know of as "sequence of tenses' in English. To me it looks like as though you use "wanted" there, it still actually belongs to present time, you just state your intent to learn of what beliefs someone holds. More importantly you obviously still want to know what their beliefs are

On the other hand, if you talk about this as a past event, like you asked that question some time ago and now telling someone else that you asked somebody that question, then it'll be an example of the sequence of tenses and in that case you'd go with:

"I wanted to ask him/her/them etc what their beliefs were" regardless of whether that person still holds those beliefs or not.

I might be mistaken though so I'd like to know what a native thinks of this line of thinking.