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Ask for help > Can you recommend me a good restaurant?
Can you recommend me a good restaurant?
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spinney
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Can you recommend me a good restaurant?
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Just wondering if any of the grammar hawks among you might be able to tell me why it �s considered wrong to say "Can you recommend me a good restaurant?" It sounds perfectly fine to me but I was listening to an ESL radio station the other day and they said it was wrong. Was the guy wrong? Is there an American/Brit difference I don �t know about? What are your thoughts on this on?
While I �m at it, is there an exercise on here with a list of verbs that don �t take object pronouns? I often have that problem with advanced level students ("can you confirm me?" etc...) |
9 Jul 2011
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Mariethe House
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I would just miss out the pronoun and say: "Can you recommend a good restaurant?" Just what I seem to remember hearing in England in such circumstance!
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9 Jul 2011
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spinney
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Thanks Mariethe! I think that �s wise. Perhaps it �s a regional thing. For example, I know it �s wrong to say "show it me" rather than "show it to me" but in parts of the UK that �s how we speak. Sometimes I think being a native can be just as much an obstacle as not. I would never correct a student for saying "me and my friends" for example (unless they had an exam coming up). The majority of Brits speak that way. In fact, to some, " My friends and I" sounds slightly comical. I suppose it �s that old argument about teaching them to speak "good English" "correct English" "native English" or "The Queen �s English." I makes my head hurt! |
9 Jul 2011
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Gia Mel
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just show it to us! Always happy to learn...
My opinion anyway...
Miss G. |
9 Jul 2011
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ueslteacher
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Hello, Dale I always tell my colleagues that the fact that a volunteer is a native speaker doesn �t mean he/she is always correct :) They never get it...
Here �s what the dictionary gives; recommend somebody/something Can you recommend a good hotel?recommend somebody/something (to somebody) (for/as something) I recommend the book to all my students.She was recommended for the post by a colleague.The hotel �s new restaurant comes highly recommended (= a lot of people have praised it).As to the exercises, maybe you�ll find something here.You might also find this site useful for your advanced students.Have a nice weekend,Sophia
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9 Jul 2011
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libertybelle
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I never use recommend me - or recommend to me.
I think it �s understood in the question who you are recommending something to.
Can you recommend a good hotel?
Can you recommend a good place to eat?
To use "to me" or just "me" sounds like a literal translation. In Danish, directly translated - you DO say "Can you recommend me" - but it doesn �t sound correct in English.
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9 Jul 2011
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almaz
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I guess if you look at the meaning(s) of �recommend� - to suggest that someone or something would be good or suitable for a
particular job or purpose, or to suggest that a particular action should be
done - you�d find that using the bare me as an indirect object (as opposed to �me� as a direct object) after recommend doesn�t really work. Mind you, the language is adapting constantly and I think we�ve all noticed that this particular usage is becoming fairly common outside the �inner circle� and may eventually be considered �normal�.
By the way, Dale, I don �t think there�s anything particularly wrong with the phrase�give it me� (although I don �t personally use it and I �ve only rarely heard �show it me�) and it �s certainly not restricted to the UK. For example, The Corpus of Historical American English will give you over a 100 separate entries for �give it me�, with most of them occurring in the 19th century. It�s kind of old-fashioned, but maybe this is the analogy you �re using when you�re thinking of recommend?
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9 Jul 2011
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PhilipR
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I agree with Almaz that language is constantly changing. I think this is a case of nitpicking. Everyone clearly understands what is meant and nobody can seem to point out a particular rule why it �s incorrect.
Can you recommend a good restaurant? perfect usage Can you recommend a good restaurant to me? sounds a bit contrived if you ask me but is correct according to the rules Can you recommend me a good restaurant? maybe not completely correct, but definitely used regularly by many - I wouldn �t correct a student if they used this phrase
BTW, the same probably goes for �I �d like to recommend (you) a good restaurant �. |
9 Jul 2011
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yanogator
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Good compromise, Philip. If you consider the parallel sentence "Can you tell me a story?", this seems all the more natural. Bruce |
9 Jul 2011
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spinney
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Perhaps it �s Spanish infecting my English with its grammar rules. Who knows? Anyway, I now have an even bigger headache thinking about it than before. I think I �ll copy and paste this and give it to the next pesky student that asks this sort of question! I �m off to take an aspirin! |
9 Jul 2011
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