Feedback on Warm-Up 2 (2): Making recommendations, etc

The language of promises, recommendations and requirements has some unexpected pitfalls in formal English. Since you're all university students, let me give you the authorised, technical version!

When you promise, recommend or require something, you're talking about a hypothetical outcome (since, by definition, when you make the promise/recommendation/requirement, it hasn't actually happened yet). There's a special type of verb which used to be used very commonly in this situation (of talking about things that haven't happened). It's called the subjunctive in grammatical terms, and it has hardly survived in English or Swedish (although it's still common in Romance languages, like French, Spanish and Portuguese). The commonest Swedish subjunctive is 'Lange leve kungen!' (leve, that is).

In English, you end up with strange forms, such as:

If I were you, I would … (thought it was supposed to be 'I was')
I recommend that he be made manager of the New York branch. ('he be'?!!!).
I require that he reimburse the amount immediately. (I thought you always put an 's' when you used 'he')

This type of language is weird, even for native speakers, and is most often found in formal letters and legal documents. The commonest way to avoid it is to use other grammatical constructions:

My recommendation is …

I would like you to undertake to … (me asking for your undertaking is the same as me making a requirement on you)

I was assured that reimbursement would be made … (an assurance is a promise, and is weaker than an undertaking).

You'll find the chapter and verse of all this in any reputable grammar book (usually taking up a couple of chapters) … though you might not have time in your lives to master it! An easier alternative is to try your suggestions out on your Internet tutor … until you develop your own sense of what is right and what is wrong!