I agree with you. I'm reasonably certain the first one is accepted these days, but I would always choose the second option. I believe one reason the first seems odd is because "recommend" is normally followed by a gerund or the subjunctive, and never the infinitive.

I might analyse this a little differently. I think "recommended" here is not an adjective, but a passive construction. I know this is a grey area, but it passes by two tests for the matter: (i) you can easily add an agent with "by", and (ii) you can't, or should I say, I wouldn't, add comparisons like "more" to the purported adjective. Furthermore, I see the word is not listed as an adjective in my dictionary. So if you accept this is passive, then the active counterpart to your example becomes "People recommend it to learn ...", which of course is splendid advice for the ambitious dog or machine or whatever it is they might be talking about. But I imagine you would have no difficulty with "I am recommended to learn ..."? I think what is going on here is that a dummy subject construction that works for true adjectives (e.g. "It is ideal to learn ...") has been conflated with a passive construction that makes no sense.