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Glite Dictionary
to recommend to

to recommend to

22 3.2
Tell someone to see a certain person like a doctor or counsellor for help
  • phrasal verb
  • /ˌrɛkəˈmɛnd tu/
translation icon : recomendar a
  • The doctor will recommend to you the best treatment options available.
  • recommend to treatment
  • recommend to patients
  • recommend to students

Examples

  • As a teacher, what do you recommend to the parents?

    Academic text (2012)

  • The Task Force agrees, and we have recommended to the MENC National Executive Board that such standards be developed.

    Academic text (2008)

  • And so I recommend to people try the simple stuff first.

  • And my question in a way is with such an incredible food, what would you recommend to drink to go along with the food?

  • Are there any particular chapters or books that you would recommend to someone if they wanted to start somewhere?

  • Professionally and personally, this experience was extremely rewarding and one I would recommend to any interested environmental health professional.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Jeffrey asks, what book or books do you recommend to help me get out of debt?

  • Well, the thing I recommend to all writers is take IMROV classes.

  • As a general rule, peace, forgiveness, and understanding are always highly recommended to the believer.

    Academic text (2003)

  • If you have any really popular mystery chiller horror to recommend to me, please feel free to do so.

Synonyms

to recommend
vsto recommend to
∞ 2.1

To suggest someone or something as a good choice

suggests consulting a person for help rather than praising suitability
to advise
vsto recommend to
414 2.2

Give someone advice about what to do

urges seeing a specific person for help rather than general guidance
to recommend that
vsto recommend to
141 3.2

Tell someone you think they should do something

suggests seeing a named person for advice rather than general action
to counsel
vsto recommend to
108 4.0

To give advice to someone about personal or legal matters

focuses on directing someone to consult a particular helper instead of giving direct guidance

Antonyms

to dissuade
35 6.0

To try to stop someone from doing something by talking to them

How Recommended

to refer
324 3.0
to recommend to
22 3.2

Surface Forms

recommend to infinitive
recommended to past
recommended to past participle
recommending to present participle
recommends to third person singular

Morphology

recommend + to

The core meaning is directly compositional: 'recommend' = suggest/advise and 'to' marks the recipient or direction of that advice (or introduces an infinitival complement), so the sense 'advise someone to see/consult a person' follows naturally. This is a common, cross-linguistically regular pattern and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words, despite some syntactic variation in usage.

Etymology

Recommend to may come from the old idea of handing someone over for help: the word recommend once meant 'to put someone in another person's care', and the word to shows who they should go to. So when you recommend to someone, you are advising them to see or trust a particular person for advice or treatment.