Pingpong English Business Class

The point

After suggest, recommend, insist, and after essential or vital, the grammar-book form uses the base verb: send, be, see. No -s, and no to. Everyday English often adds -s. This point asks for the book form.

Form and use

After certain verbs, a that-clause uses the base form of the verb. This is the present subjunctive. It does not take -s, and it does not take to. The same base is used for every subject, including he, she, and it.

Verbs and adjectives that take this pattern: suggest that he send the note recommend that she leave early insist that the team be ready demand that they sign it ask that the mail be in English It is essential that every plant see the header. It is vital that she be there. It is important that he check the date. The negative is not plus the base: I suggest that he not send it. Do not write does not send inside this clause.

The base form is the whole point. He sends, he is, and he to send are the usual mistakes. Say I suggest that he send the note. Say she recommended that the mail be in English. Say it is essential that every plant see the header. In ordinary statements outside this pattern, the -s returns: he sends the note every day.

A related form, in one line: if I were you uses were, not was, for a hypothetical state. That were belongs to the unreal conditional, not to the that-clause above. Do not mix them. The subjunctive that-clause keeps a base verb. The hypothetical if-clause keeps were for a present unreal state.

Don't translate it like this

Don't say

I suggest that he sends the note.

Say

I suggest that he send the note.

그가 메모를 보내기를 제안합니다.

The mandative form is the base verb. Sends is common in speech. It is not the form this point teaches.

Short examples

I suggest that he send the note.

그가 메모를 보내기를 제안합니다.

It is essential that every plant see the header.

모든 공장이 머리말을 보는 것이 필수입니다.

She recommended that the mail be in English.

그녀는 메일이 영어이기를 권했습니다.

It is vital that she be there.

그녀가 거기 있는 것이 매우 중요합니다.

I suggest that he not send it.

그가 그것을 보내지 말라고 제안합니다.

They insist that the team be ready.

그들은 팀이 준비되어 있어야 한다고 주장합니다.

We ask that the file be checked.

파일이 확인되기를 요청합니다.

If I were you, I would wait.

내가 나라면 기다리겠습니다.

Questions

Every question has to be right to close this point.