[PeterHolzwarth]

Ooo, that is a particularly great example - I wouldn't have thought of that (no pun intended), and I pride myself on being able to scale my use of English to the skill-level of the person I am speaking to.

In fact, even if I was in "speak simply" mode, I would still use "would" instead of, perhaps, "recommend," as "would" is a shorter word: I favor simpler words over multi-syllable versions when trying to be maximally understandable to someone whose native language is not English. I'm glad you brought it up!

[mabbo]

To this day, I'm still unsure whether there was a misunderstanding or if I was being taken advantage of, but I presume good intent from the person.

[jackvalentine]

Sometimes people just hear what they want to hear. I’ve definitely been in situations where my advice was carefully caveated with a precursor “If I were in your situation, I would do X” and the person has just heard “I would do X”.

[hgsgm]

"I suggest ..." or "[Maybe] try ...".