İngilizce Dersleri: the fourth post in our series where we offer easy, everyday solutions to challenges that Turks have with the English language.
Recently in a TurksLearnEnglish.com lesson, a student was talking to me about a restaurant that he thought I should go to and said, ‘I advise you.’ This error is a a common mistake for Turks learning English. In Turkish ‘tavsiye etmek’ would be used in this situation.
In Turkish, tavsiye is used in situations where in English you would find both to recommend and to advise or even you should.
So, how do you express tavsiye in English? It depends on the formality of your situation. Generally speaking, there are three options.
1. Advise for very formal and very important information. Common in written English.
‘I strongly advise you to stop smoking.’
‘They advised her against coming alone at night.’
‘She advised him to take the 17h00 flight so he would arrive at the meeting on time.’
2. Recommend for formal but less important statements in spoken English.
‘It is recommended that you sleep at least seven hours each night.’
‘I don’t recommend that restaurant. The food was terrible.’
‘I recommend him highly.’ (my doctor, this candidate)
3. Should + verb is the least formal in spoken English. This is the form you will hear and use most.
‘You should eat some. It’s delicious!’ (the cake, the pie)
‘You should visit it!’ (that restaurant, the new art gallery)
‘You should see it.’ (that film, the new TV series)
‘You should come.’ (to Madrid with us next week, to the cinema tonight)
Your turn!
Keep in mind, that if you prefer video learning exercise we have a library of video learning exercises waiting for you in our Ingilizce Dersleri section! These videos are available to you at all times and are a great compliment to written exercises and live conversation classes.
Look at the examples below and try to think of a response for each one using the word in brackets. For each exercise, a. is the most formal, and c. the least formal situation.
Here’s an example (we’ve completed the responses for you in bold):
You have gained 10 kilograms during the last year.
a. Your doctor says ‘I advise you take change your diet and take regular exercise’
b. An article in the newspaper states, ‘Doctors recommend at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise each day if you want to lose weight’.
c. Your friends says, ‘Mate, you should lose some weight!’
Now, think of some responses for #1 to #3:
1. You are stressed, overworked and have not taken a holiday in three years.
a. What does your doctor tell you? (advise)
b. What does your colleague say to you? (recommend)
c. What do your friends suggest? (should)
2. The new James Bond film is released and it receives great reviews.
a. What does a movie critic write so that people go to see it? (advise)
b. How do you tell your boss to see it? (recommend)
c. How would tell a friend to watch it? (should)
3. Your mother eats a lot of sugary and unhealthy food.
a. What would a nutritionist tell her? (advise)
b. What would the salesperson in the health food shop tell her? (recommend)
c. What would her best friend tell her? (should)
Did you find this helpful? Let us know what other topics you would like us to cover!
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