Writing Tips: How to use 'recommend'

Here's an explanation from the BBC website Learning English, which I hope will clarify the use of recommend. We don’t use the subjunctive very much in contemporary English unless we wish to sound very formal. With verbs likesuggest, recommend, insist and adjectives like important,essential, imperative, crucial, vital, we often use should +infinitive instead of the subjunctive or we can use the normal tense form. The reporting verbs and adjectives above are normally followed by a that-clause in which that itself is often omitted. In your example, Olly, ‘It’s important that the lesson be funny’ sounds too formal. We would normally say: ‘It’s important that the lesson should be funny.’ Compare also the following: The doctor recommended (that) he should give up smoking.  The doctor recommended (that) he give up smoking. (More formal) The doctor recommended (that) he gives up smoking. (Less formal)