"beginner to intermediate chefs" or "beginning to intermediate chefs"?

Solution 1:

intermediate is an adjective, beginner is a noun, and beginning is either an adjective (she's a beginning driver...), a noun (in the beginning...), or a verb (beginning with Sally, we shall...).

I believe you are correct in choosing beginning over beginner, because beginning and intermediate can both function as adjectives. However, because beginning chef denotes action (the chef is beginning) as well as describes the chef's ability and intermediate chef only describes the chef's ability, the phrase no longer has parallel construction (and thus sounds weird to us).

My advice would be to avoid both beginner and beginning. Use a word which only describes the chef's skill level (for example, basic) instead.

Solution 2:

I mostly agree with emma's answer but wanted to throw out some possible alternatives. Part of the suggestions below is that I'm questioning if the use of "to" is making this sound worse than it is, using "and" might feel more natural and still imply anyone in between:

• This book is for beginners and intermediate chefs
• This book is for beginners and intermediate-level chefs
• This book is for beginner- to intermediate-level chefs (similar to Laura's answer but a little closer to the original )
• This book is for beginners and experienced chefs
• This book is for both new and experienced chefs

I definitely think the use of "level" can help make "intermediate sound more natural in this sentence. Using the plural beginners may also help, as I did in the first couple examples. Using "both" might also help it feel a bit more natural.