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I'm confused between the usage of placement of word would in these two sentences:

What I would recommend to you is to buy XYZ book from the market.

What would I recommend you to is to buy XYZ book from the market.

Please tell when to use Would I and I would?

Please correct if grammatical error(if any in both of sentence)

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2 Answers 2

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English statements use a subject, maybe an auxiliary verb (or two or three or four auxiliary verbs) and a main verb.
"I would recommend ..." has "I" as its subject, "would" as its modal auxiliary verb and "recommend" as its main verb. The other parts of the sentence don't change this basic grammar.
In English questions, the subject and the (first) auxiliary verb (when there is one) change order.
"Would I recommend ...?" has the auxiliary verb "would" before the subject "I". The two possible questions are:

"Would I recommend to you to buy something?" (and my own answer to that is, "Yes, I would" (this form is sometimes called a "yes/no question")

and:

"What would I recommend to you to buy?" (and my own answers to that are "A book", "A particular book" and "XYZ book from the market") (this form is sometimes called a "wh- question" or an "information question").

In both cases, I am asking the question to myself, and not to you, maybe to check that I've correctly understood your request for a recommendation and maybe to give myself time to think. I don't have to ask you what I would recommend - I already know, and I'm about to tell you.

Your original sentence is a statement: "What I would recommend to you is to (do this)."

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  • Is recommend followed by to?
    – Sudhir
    Jun 24, 2014 at 8:14
  • If I say 'What I would recommend to you is ...', then I make it very clear that I am recommending to you. But I can leave 'to you' out: 'What I would recommend is ...'. If I am talking to you, then my recommendation is to you unless I specify someone different. I can say: 'What I recommend to your friend is to buy ABC book, and what I recommend to you is to buy XYZ book'. (There are also other ways to say all this, including 'I recommend that you buy ...'). There is a small group of words which work in the same way, including 'recommend', 'suggest' and 'promise'.
    – Sydney
    Jun 25, 2014 at 13:31
  • What I would recommend you is to buy a but XYZ book. Is this sentence perfect?
    – Sudhir
    Jun 26, 2014 at 9:26
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For me, the first statement seems to be correct. This is how it is pronounced -

What I would recommend you, [pause] is to buy this Book from the Market.

In this statement, the speaker seems to answer a question which he would have been asked.

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