Spanish Verb Recomendar – Uses, Verbals and Worksheet

Recomendar and its Uses

We use Recomendar in Spanish to express the high esteem we have for someone, praising him usually in order to get a job or position for that person: Recomendé a Jorge para el puesto de supervisor en la fábrica. (I recommended Jorge for the supervisor position in the factory.)

To give good (or bad) opinion concerning restaurants, services and others: Ese restaurante nos fue recomendado por los vecinos. ¡Estuvo fantástico!. (That restaurant was recommended to us by the neighbors. It was fantastic!)

Verbals of Recomendar

Verbals are verbs that don’t conjugate and need other words in order to be used. No matter the person, tense, number, these words will remain the same (hooray!). The verb Recomendar has three verbals: the infinitive, the gerund and the participle. Let’s move on to the examples:

	Verbal	Common Use	Example	English
Infinitive	Recomendar (to recommend / recommending)	Non conjugated/Noun	Recomendarnos ese spa fue excelente	To recommend us that spa was excellent
Gerund	Recomendando (recommending)	Adverb/ periphrasis	Recomendando nuestros servicios ganarás una comisión.	Recommending our services will earn you a commission.
Participle	Recomendado (recommended)	Adjective	Nos fue recomendado permanecer en el hotel.	It was recommended to us to stay in the hotel.

Recomendar Conjugation: Indicative Mood

You have to take into account the focus that is used when a person is speaking, what the verb or phrase is saying in general, and the most common focus (to talk about a timeline) in Spanish is the indicative mood. Don’t forget that the auxiliary verb Haber (to have) is an important part of its compound tenses!

Simple Tenses of the Indicative Mood

Subject	Present	Preterite	Imperfect	Conditional	Future
	(recommend)	(recommended)	(recommended)	(would recommend)	(will recommend)
Yo	recomiendo	recomendé	recomendaba	recomendaría	recomendaré
Tú	recomiendas	recomendaste	recomendabas	recomendarías	recomendarás
Él/Ella/Usted	recomienda	recomendó	recomendaba	recomendaría	recomendará
Nosotros	recomendamos	recomendamos	recomendábamos	recomendaríamos	recomendaremos
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	recomiendan	recomendaron	recomendaban	recomendarían	recomendarán

Some examples:

• Te recomendaría comprar el más caro, pero no lo tienen en esta tienda.(I would recommend you to buy the most expensive one, but they do not have it in this store.)
• Nosotros siempre recomendamos hospedarte en hoteles conocidos. (We always recommend staying in known hotels.)

Compound Tenses of the Indicative Mood

Subject	Present	Preterite	Imperfect	Conditional	Future
	(have/has recommended)	(had recommended)	(had recommended)	(would have recommended)	(will have recommended)
Yo	he recomendado	hube recomendado	había recomendado negado	habría recomendado	habré recomendado
Tú	has recomendado	hubiste recomendado	habías recomendado	habrías recomendado	habrás recomendado
Él/Ella/Usted	ha recomendado	hubo recomendado	había recomendado	habría recomendado	habrá recomendado
Nosotros	hemos recomendado	hubimos recomendado	habíamos recomendado	habríamos recomendado	habremos recomendado
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	han recomendado	hubieron recomendado	habían recomendado	habrían recomendado	habrán recomendado

Recomendar Conjugation: Subjunctive Mood

With this mood, we hypothesize or express our wishes. The number of verb tenses is reduced, being divided equally into simple and compound.

Simple Tenses of the Subjunctive Mood

Subject	Present	Imperfect	Imperfect 2	Future
Yo	recomiende	hube recomendado	recomendase	recomendare
Tú	recomiendes	recomendaras	recomendases	recomendares
Él/Ella/Usted	recomiende	recomendara	recomendase	recomendare
Nosotros	recomendemos	recomendáramos	recomendásemos	recomendáremos
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	recomienden	recomendaran	recomendasen	recomendaren

More examples:

• Si usted recomendase ese proveedor, nosotros le compraríamos de inmediato. (If you would recommend that supplier, we would immediately buy from him.)
• Ustedes recomiendan restaurantes buenos, pero muy caros. (You recommend good, but very expensive restaurants.)

Compound Tenses of the Subjunctive Mood

Subject	Present	Imperfect	Imperfect 2	Future
Yo	haya recomendado	hubiera recomendado	hubiese recomendado	hubiere recomendado
Tú	hayas recomendado	hubieras recomendado	hubieses recomendado	hubieres recomendado
Él/Ella/Usted	haya recomendado	hubiera recomendado	hubiese recomendado	hubiere recomendado
Nosotros	hayamos recomendado	hubiéramos recomendado	hubiésemos recomendado	hubiéremos recomendado
Ellos/Ellas/Ustedes	hayan recomendado	hubieran recomendado	hubiesen recomendado	hubieren recomendado

Recomendar Conjugation: Imperative Mood

 We enter the last mood you are going to memorize, with fewer people to learn (fortunately): the bossy (or Imperative) mood. With this conjugation you can express orders. And since you can’t order yourself or a third party, you will only learn 3 persons and 1 verb tense. Possible uses of the Imperative mood? Children, pets, or that roomie who won’t stop eating your stuff.

Imperative Mood’s Conjugations

Subject	Affirmative (recommend / let's recommend)	Negative (don't recommend / let's not recommend)
Tú	recomienda	no recomiendes
Nosotros	recomendemos	no recomendemos
Ustedes	recomienden	no recomienden

Examples:

• No recomiendes más a Raul, no ha ido a trabajar por tres días. (Do not recommend Raul anymore, he has not shown up for work for three days.)
• Recomienden un hotel en la playa para el verano, por favor. (Please recommend a hotel by the beach for the summer.)

Quiz/Worksheet – Recomendar

As I mentioned before, practicing will be your best ally in mastering Spanish, and since our goal is to help you, we will leave you some sentences to review what we have learned in this lesson. Fill in the correct conjugation in the spaces below using the answers from the box:

1.       ¿Me podría usted ______________ una buena barbería? (Could you please recommend me a good barbershop?)
2.       Yo les _______________ comprar en otra tienda. (I would have recommended you to buy in another store)
3.       Por favor, _______________ ese restaurante, tiene un pésimo servicio. (Please, do not recommend that restaurant anymore, the service is awful!)
4.       El que las chicas _______________ a ese profesor hizo que el asunto empeorase. (the fact that the girls had recommended that teacher made the things worse)
5.       Si yo _______________ un buen electricista, ese sería José. (If I recommended a good electrician, that would be Jose)  
6.       Nosotros _______________ a los mejores trabajadores de esta empresa. (We have recommended the best workers in this company)
7.       Te ______________ para ese puesto, pero eres muy irresponsable. (I would have recommended you for that position, but you are very irresponsible) 
8.       Seguramente Cecilia __________________ comprar los suministros en Office Store y no en Office Best. (Surely Cecilia will recommend buying the supplies in Office Store rather than in Office Best)   
9.       Mejor _________________ hacer la fiesta en una discoteca. (Let´s better recommend to have the party at a disco)
10.   Brenda _____________ asistir al curso, pero nadie quiso ir. (Brenda recommended attending the course but nobody wanted to go)  

Answers

Here you can confirm if you got the answers right, remember that it’s okay to make mistakes, don’t lose sleep over a few mistakes, keep practicing every day!

1.       Recomendar
2.       Habria recomendado
3.       No recomienden
4.       Hayan recomendado
5.       Recomendase
6.       Hemos recomendado
7.       Habría recomendado
8.       Recomendará
9.       Recomendemos 
10.   Recomendó