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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Can you recommend me a good restaurant?
Can you recommend me a good restaurant?
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libertybelle
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What �s correct in the old grammar books and what is used daily are two different things.
If it �s not grammatically incorrect - I would go with the flow and use what young native speakers use. That way, your students won �t sound like a walking grammar book from the last century.
Most young kids want to sound "young" - so I �d go with that.
If someone asked me "Can you recommend me a good hotel" - I would probably think they were foreign.
I still think:
Can you recommend a good hotel? is what is most widely used today.
Good luck
L
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9 Jul 2011
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ueslteacher
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@ Libertybelle: True, but if you train your students for a test or practice academic writing or in order to eventually get a specific job, I don �t think speaking slang would get them far in those dimensions. BTW the grammar book doesn �t have to be old anyway.  And conversational doesn �t have to be incorrect or slang.Sophia
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9 Jul 2011
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blunderbuster
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Isn �t the same true for "Can you explain me....."
Personally, I never use it, but I hear it quite often.
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9 Jul 2011
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spinney
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I think I �d have to correct that one, blunderbuster. Mind you, I used to correct "write me" until an American colleague explained that it �s considered correct over the pond. I �m pretty sure "can you explain me ..." isn �t right, though ("can you explain to me" is the only way I can see that). If only there was a rule for all this! |
9 Jul 2011
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Jayho
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You have raised an interesting discussion Spinney.
However, when I put ESL in front of it I found a little gem here that you can show your student. It explains it very nicely.
Cheers
Jayho |
10 Jul 2011
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joy2bill
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I agree with Jayho. If a student uses "Can you recommend me a good restaurant" my inner grammar self screams "no, don �t do it". So I also would probably leave the �me � out completely, after all it is understood.
On the other hand if you were asking about a third person then the correct usuage must apply. "Can you recommend a good restaurant to / for Alice?" Oops I �m opening another can of worms there!
Cheers Joy |
10 Jul 2011
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spinney
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It is indeed a very large can of worms. I �ve just been trawling through my girlfriend �s copy of "Cambridge Grammar of English" (2005, things could well have changed in it already!) and found many entries and info on the subject but not what I was looking for (with indirect object followed by direct object etc). And then I come back to this page and see that Jayho has done what I should have done in the first place - googled it! It confirms what I thought. Grammatically correct or not, natives make this kind of mistake which is why it sounds OK to me. In fact, the whole thing is giving me some ideas for a sort of "direct/indirect" worksheet with a list of dos and donts and exercises. I �ll see if I can find the time to get it done before this time next week. Lets hope I get the rules right myself!
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10 Jul 2011
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almaz
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Sorry, Jayho, but your �little gem � is a poor simulant. He/she states categorically that you should "never use an object pronoun after recommended" but quite blithely goes on to advise the pattern "Subject + recommended + object + to + pronoun". Someone recommended the Metropolitan Museum. I �d recommend it too. It �s fairly obvious that your rhinestone cowboy doesn �t know or care what an object pronoun is, but feels eminently qualified to pontificate about it. If this person came to you looking for a reference for a teaching job, would you recommend her/him?
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10 Jul 2011
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spinney
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Thanks for that, htunde! The reply on the second link to the post on the forum had me rolling around on the floor for a few minutes there. Brilliant! |
10 Jul 2011
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