"Recommend you to [do something]" or "Recommend to you to [do something]"?

Will anyone make a clear comparison between "recommend + subject + to infinitive" and "recommend + to + subject + to + infinitive"?

As an example:

  1. We recommend you to buy a new car.
  2. We recommend to you to buy a new car.

Are both sentences correct?
Which one am I most likely to hear in a native atmosphere?


This is an area where usage has recently changed quite significantly...

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Note that the same pattern occurs with any other verb - lately, we just don't bother with "to". If we look back further in time, we see that even the first "to" has been progressively discarded...

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Technically speaking, as @Mustafa points out, there are some contexts where omitting the first "to" implies that the recommendation itself is being made to someone else, about you. In practice this is rarely an issue - the intended meaning is invariably clear, and in most cases the advice is actually being given to "you".

I think the main driving force behind this shift in usage is simply that we all sense "We recommend to you to buy a new car" is far too "verbose". Increasingly, we tend to just go for the concise form "We recommend [that] you buy a new car".

Also note that the current trend is increasingly not to bother with "that" either...

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"We recommend you to buy a new car."

This is fine, but probably doesn't mean what you think it means. This means that we think the right person to buy a new car is you. It means, essentially, "If you asked us who should buy a new car, we would recommend you."

"We recommend to you to buy a new car."

That's fine. The "to you to" is a bit awkward sounding though. Most common are, "We recommend buying a new car" (to you is implied) or "We recommend [that] you buy a new car."