giving suggestion.?

Joey_five:

which of the following sentences is correct:

1) The first thing that we can do is talk to our parents.

2) The first thing that we can do is to talk to our parents.

or any other suggestions??

Thank you in advance.

Full Member105

pieanne:

I prefer the first one, because "do" and "talk" are on the same level (no "to")

Veteran Member7,461

Joey_five:

PieanneI prefer the first one, because "do" and "talk" are on the same level (no "to")

Sorry, what do you mean "the same level" ?

You mean we can rephrase the sentence like "You can first talk to your parents" ? can do ~ can talk ?

Although I also feel that the first one sounds better, it still looks weird. I mean the verb "is" followed by a base form looks strange.

paco2004:

Hello Joey5

As Pieanne answered, "talk" without "to" is the commoner expression in this case. You may say "why?". It's a bit difficult to explain the reason, but my guess is as follows.

The first thing we can do is talk to our parents.
The speakers have a feeling as if they are substituting a bare infinitive phrase "talk to our parent" for the bare form "do". In another word, when speaking it, the speakers have in their mind a sentence or an idea like "do is talk to our parents".

paco

Senior Member4,095

Anonymous:

plss give some example of dialogs giving suggestion

Anonymous:

the first one

giving suggestion.?

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