Grammar Tip 4: Using 'suggest'

I will be posting two grammar tips every week. Sometimes short, sometimes a bit longer, these tips are designed to draw your attention to problem areas in English grammar which often cause difficulty. See archive for earlier tips.

Suggest

This is a tricky verb, but one you need often. It causes problems when you try to use it with a direct personal pronoun ('me' instead of 'to me'). Also, it does not work well with infinitives.

Have a look at these three sentences. Which one is most commonly used?

1. She suggested me to read the whole book.
2. She suggested to me to read the whole book.
3. She suggested that I read the whole book.

Well done if you chose (3). Suggest is not used with a direct personal pronoun and an infinitive (1). It can be used with an indirect personal pronoun (2) but again not with an infinitive.

(3) is correct. Suggest + that + subject pronoun + verb.

Here the verb is actually in the subjunctive. This means that it does not change. So you could change 'I' to 'he' or 'she' and the verb would stay the same: I suggested that she read the whole book.

Note that it is possible to omit 'that': She suggested I read the whole book.

Suggest is tricky because most other verbs can use the direct personal pronoun and an infinitive:

She advised me to read the whole book.
She forced me to read....... She urged me to read..... etc

Another tricky verb that works like this is propose:

They proposed that we meet every Friday. NOT They proposed us that we meet every Friday.

However, propose (unlike suggest) can take an infinitive directly after:

They proposed to meet every week.

Also, take note of explain:

She explained to me how the machine works. NOT She explained me how the machine works.

Note: you can use a gerund after suggest: She suggested reading the whole book. But this is for another grammar tip!