help me with my question: recommend
Oinu
1. I will recommend you to visit New York.
2. I think you should visit New York.
3. I would like you to visit New York.
How do these three sentences sound to you ?
All of them sound quite natural to you ?
I think there's nothing wrong with all of them, but I've heard that
you don't often say the no.1 sentence when you urge someone to do
something which you like.
Any advice would help. and I'd appreciate it if you'd respond to my
query.
Thank you very much in advance.
Glenn Knickerbocker
> 1. I will recommend you to visit New York.
"Recommend" doesn't take an infinitive clause as an object like "want"
or "like," and it doesn't take an indirect object like "tell" or "ask."
You recommend something *to* someone. Also, the future tense doesn't
make sense here unless there's some context that makes it conditional.
You're stating the recommendation now, so either use the simple present:
I recommend to you to visit New York.
or use the conditional to indicate a tendency:
I would recommend to you to visit New York.
This wording is still a little unusual, though. More commonly we'd use
a noun clause instead of the infinitive:
I recommend that you visit New York.
I'd recommend that you visit New York.
ŹR
Mike Lyle
British and similar usage would usually say "I/I'd recommend you to
visit..." I'd unhesitatingly use this structure in formal language,
too.
We do the same with "ask", "request", "order", "instruct", "prefer",
and the like--but not with "insist", "demand", and others which don't
come to mind on the spur of the moment.
--
Mike.
Mark Brader
> Let me ask you a question about the following sentences.
>
> 1. I will recommend you to visit New York.
Not natural. I would recommend "I would recommend that you visit
New York". (The words "would" and "that" are both optional here.)
> 2. I think you should visit New York.
> 3. I would like you to visit New York.
These are fine. The meaning of 1 and 2 is similar, but 3 is different.
In 1 and 2, you are making this recommendation for the benefit of the
other person.
In 3, you are making a request for your own benefit. For example,
a manager might say this to an employee if there is a business reason
for the employee to visit New York. (Of course, the manager might also
phrase it as an order rather than a suggestion.)
--
Mark Brader | "It's not in the slightest bit harder to write Fortran
Toronto | or Basic programs in C++ or Smalltalk than it is
m...@vex.net | to write them in C or Pascal." -- Peter da Silva
My text in this article is in the public domain.
John Varela
<mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> British and similar usage would usually say "I/I'd recommend you to
> visit..."
In my usage, a sentence that begins "I'd recommend you..." tends to
continue something like "...for that promotion except that I don't
think you can handle the job."
Which is to say, in that structure, "you" are not receiving a
recommendation, "you" are what is being recommended. So when your
sentence continues "...to visit..." it is a jarring change of
meaning. To me.
--
John Varela
Glenn Knickerbocker
>British and similar usage would usually say "I/I'd recommend you to
>visit..." I'd unhesitatingly use this structure in formal language,
>too.
Interesting, I don't recall hearing it from English friends and would have
said I'd only encountered it in translations from (or via) French.
ngrams.google.com (thanks to Jerry Friedman for reminding me of this neat
tool) shows "recommend you to try" falling off after about 1940 in American
books and 20 years later in English books.
�R
Mike Lyle
Interesting. But I'd be horrified if my dialect had switched to "I ask
that you..." when my back was turned. That's possible, of course; but
with a different force.
--
Mike.