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      TeachingEnglish
      About the verb 'to suggest'
      Submitted by kkerr on 28 October, 2009 - 22:12

      Hi,

      a student asked if 'He suggested to invite them to dinner.' was correct. At the time I said it was but, 'He suggested inviting them to dinner.' was better. I'm now doubting this, but keep going round in circles as to why suggest + infinitve is wrong. Maybe using infinitive is spoken, but grammatically not correct? I've looked up 'suggestions' in various grammar reference books, but they don't give very much information.

      Any help would be great!

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      sm_counsell's picture
      sm_counsell
      Verb suggest
      Submitted on 29 October, 2009 - 17:12

      I also have had trouble in the past with this verb as Italian students always want detailed grammatical explanations.

      This is what I have  discovered

      You should never use 'To ' or an object pronoun after suggest

      You can say: Susan suggests (that) I buy a car

                          Susan suggests buying a car (however, here it's not really clear who Susan is suggesting to!)

                          Susan suggested how I could study some grammar

      Also in the passive:

                          Susan has been suggested for the teaching post

      Hope this helps.

      Rgds

      kkerr's picture
      kkerr
      Thankyou! that has been a
      Submitted on 30 October, 2009 - 11:08

      Thankyou! that has been a great help! I couldn't find anything in my books that said 'to + infinitive' could not be used.

      karin9al's picture
      karin9al
      Suggest
      Submitted on 30 October, 2009 - 19:31

      Also suggest + Possessive + ING

      She suggested my going home earlier.

      anupkumarr's picture
      anupkumarr
      SHOULD is often used in a
      Submitted on 1 November, 2009 - 12:00

      SHOULD is often used in a 'that' clause after verb 'suggest'.Thus the sentence may be reprehased thus:

      He suggested that we should invite ---.Often we omit 'should' as in "We sugggest we go to seaside this summer.''If we 'should',confusion hardly arises.What do you say?

      Heath's picture
      Heath
      suggest + noun
      Submitted on 3 November, 2009 - 05:11

      Yes, suggest + to doesn't sound right to me.

      We can also use suggest + noun.

      • He suggested the soup.
      • He suggested the cinema.

      But the context would need to support it.

      I definitely feel most comfortable with suggest that sb do sth.  Even dropping 'that' sounds a bit funny to me (but I know a lot of people who feel it's okay).