How to Give Advice In English

Giving Advice In English

There are many ways to give advice in English. Some phrases can be used to talk about an obligation, a strong suggestion or a simple take-it-or-leave-it suggestion. The words you select when giving advice in English will affect the meaning of the suggestion and how it’s interpreted. In this blog, we’ll learn some useful phrases for giving advice in English, what they mean and how to use them.

In English, there are ways to make suggestions, strong recommendations, and ways to strongly encourage someone to make the right choice. It’s important to learn the meaning behind the phrase you choose to give advice in English to ensure that your suggestion is given with the right tone.

Suggest

To suggest something or to suggest something to someone are two sentence structures you can use to give advice in English. When we suggest something to someone, we make a suggestion based on what we think is the right or the good thing to do.

Example:

Person 1: "Where should we eat dinner tonight?"

Person 2: "I suggest the Chinese restaurant across the street."

Person 2 thinks that the Chinese restaurant is a good option for a place to eat tonight. Person 1 may have another suggestion and they might settle on another restaurant. A suggestion is just an option to help make a decision.

Recommend

A recommendation is a stronger suggestion. The person making the recommendation really thinks that their suggestion is the one you should choose. A recommendation can be used to recommend something at the time of speaking or it can be used to say ‘I think this place is really nice and you should really go there the next time you go out.’

Most of the time we can use ‘recommend’ in place of ‘suggest,’ but we don’t usually use ‘suggest’ instead of ‘recommend.’

Suggest Or Recommend

We can recommend anything at any time. A recommendation can be made to share a place we think someone should go to the next time they want to go out. We can recommend a restaurant to our friends, for example, with no intention to go to the restaurant at the time of speaking. In contrast, a suggestion is an idea or recommendation that we think is a good idea for the situation we are in at the time of speaking.

Examples:

"I recommend going to the Chinese restaurant for dinner" means "it’s a great restaurant, you should go some time."

"I suggest going to the Chinese restaurant for dinner" means, "I think we should go there for dinner tonight."

I Recommend And I Suggest Grammar

Whenever we use a verb after ‘recommend’ and ‘suggest’ we have to use a gerund (verb + ing).

To suggest/recommend + verb-ing

Examples:

"I suggest going to the Chinese restaurant."

"I recommend going to the Chinese restaurant."

Should

Should is another word we can use to make a suggestion. ‘Should’ is different from ‘must’ and ‘have to.’ ‘Should’ shows that we are giving advice. ‘Should’ is the modal verb we use when we think the action is the right thing to do and is the best possible option.

For example:

Person 1: "Where should we eat tonight?"

Person 2: "If you like Chinese restaurants, then you should go to the Chinese restaurant across the street."

We use ‘shouldn’t’ when we want to say that something is the wrong thing to do or the worst possible option.

For example:

"You shouldn’t smoke."

It’s not a rule, it’s something that I think is the wrong thing to do. I don’t think smoking is a good idea.

We often use ‘should’ to give advice. ‘Should’ doesn’t mean that something is a rule or a law, it’s just the right thing to do. If it’s a rule or a law, then we must use ‘must’ or ‘have to.’ If it’s just advice, we should say ‘should.’

Why Don’t You

• Why don’t you…’ is another introductory phrase that we can use to give advice.

For example:

"Why don’t you go to the Chinese restaurant across the street?"

This means ‘you should try it’ and ‘you can do it, so why not do it?’ It’s another way to make a suggestion and to show someone else that you think it’s a good idea.

If I Were You

If you know how to use the second conditional, then you know it’s great for giving advice by using a hypothetical (or unreal) situation.

For example:

"If I were you, I’d go to the Chinese restaurant across the street."

This means that if I were going out to eat, I would choose the Chinese restaurant across the street. Of course, ‘I’ can never be ‘you,’ which makes this a hypothetical situation.

I Were Or I Was

It may seem strange that we use ‘if I were…’ instead of ‘if I was…’ However, this isn’t a mistake. This is a special situation in English and allows us to talk about hypothetical situations. We always say ‘if I were you…’ to give advice.

If you need to brush up on your grammar skills and want more information about ‘I was’ vs ‘I were’ then it would be a great idea to join an English speaking platform to find a deeper explanation of this topic.

You Had Better

All of the above sentences can be used interchangeably without changing the meaning of the statement too much. Each of the previous examples is a way to make suggestions that don’t have a severe impact on the future. It doesn’t really matter if the person does it or not,

However, ‘you had better’ has a stronger implication and implies that something bad may happen if you don’t do what is suggested. ‘Had better’ is a type of advice but with undertones of a threat.

Example:

"You had better pay for your food at the restaurant."

This means that if you don’t pay for your food at a restaurant then something bad will happen.

"You had better do it!" means that if you don’t do it then something bad will happen.

I'm Catherine Grant, a Celta-qualified English teacher who is currently teaching as part of the English Everyday program .