Advice and Recommendation

Advice and Recommendation

Objective
Through this section, you will learn:

• How to give advice and recommendation

Learn about it!

What does your parent usually do when you are going to try something new? Well, they usually give you an advice, right? What is advice? What is it for? How to give an advice wisely? Don’t worry. We’ll learn those things in this section!

Read the following situation.

Nina is going to have an English debate competition tomorrow morning. In your opinion, what will her mother say the night before?

Mom: Nina, have you had all your stuff prepared for tomorrow?
Nina: I have. Everything I need is in the bag.
Mom: Okay, that’s good. What time are you going to go tomorrow?
Nina: Around 6 a.m.
Mom: Well, you’d better go to bed now.

From the conversation, we can find that Nina’s mother is checking Nina’s preparation for the competition by asking, “Nina, have you had all your stuff prepared for tomorrow?”Moreover, we also know that Nina’s mother gives Nina an advice. She gave an advice to Nina to go to bed by saying, “Well, you’d better go to bed now.”

Now, think about this: why does Nina’s mother advice her to go to bed soon?

Now, read the following situation.

Nina will go to watch movie with her friends this afternoon. In your opinion, what will her father say before Nina going to the Cinema? Well, let’s find out what Nina’s father will say through the following conversation.

Father: With whom are you going to watch the movie?
Nina: With Marissa, Minka, and Rangga.
Father: What will you do after watching the movie then?
Nina: I think we’ll just grab some food and go home, Dad.
Father: Okay, it sounds good. But, remember, you’d better not go home late at
night.
Nina: Sure. You can keep my word.

From the conversation, we know that Nina’s father asks Nina two questions. The first one is about with whom Nina will watch the movie. The second one is what Nina will do after watching the movie.

Besides that, Nina’s father is giving an advice. Can you find the advice? Well, the advice is about not to go home late at night. The advice can be seen in the following statement, “But, remember, you’d better not go home late at night.”

Now, think about this: why does Nina’s father advice her not to go home late at night?

From the conversation one and two, we can find two different advices.

• First advice: ask Nina to go to bed soon. Why does Nina’s mother ask her to go to bed soon? From the situation, we can infer that Nina’s mother gave advice to her daughter to go to bed soon because Nina should go early in the morning. So, she should go to bed soon. Therefore, she will be fresh and punctual.
• Second advice: ask Nina to not come home late at night. Why does Nina’s father ask her not to come home late at night? Well, because it is dangerous to come home late at night. It is for her safety.

So, from the conversations what can you say about giving advice?

From the two different situations, we can infer that giving advice is one of the ways to prevent bad things to happen.

When you give an advice, sometimes people you gave the advice will ask recommendation for further action, for example:

Nina: If I were you, I would not go to that restaurant?
Marissa: So, what do you recommend?
Nina: I recommend going to Rumah Teduh cafe.

From the conversation, we can infer that Marissa asks Nina’s recommendation on a good restaurant. So, Nina suggests Rumah Teduh cafe by saying, “I recommend going to Rumah Teduh cafe.”

To give recommendation, you can say the following expressions.

• I recommend that you....
• I suggest that you....
• I recommend....

Do you understand?

Now, try to practice it in the following activity. Read the conversation below. The conversation is not complete yet. Complete the conversation by filling the blanks with the expressions given below.

Minka: Rangga, what will you use for the Prom Night?
Rangga: I don’t know. I think I will use my grey shirt.
Minka: What? .... ^1. Ever!
Rangga: Why?
Minka: ....^2.
Rangga: So, what should I wear for the Prom?
Minka: .... ^3.
Rangga: Never. It’s even worse than the grey one.

A. It’s so out- dated.
B. I think you should never use that shirt again forever.
C. I suggest that you wear the red one

Keypoints

From this lesson, you have learnt how to give advice and recommendation. You know that giving advice and recommendation is a mean to prevent bad things to happen. To give an advice, we can simply say you'd better or you'd better not.