Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[yoshi-pooh]

Hi, everyone

Do you say "graduate high school..." instead of "graduate from high school"?

Several years ago I happened to find a sentence starting with " Graduating high school in 1980...." in People magazine. I didn't know until then that "from" can be optional. However, I still hear some native English teachers say "from" is necessary after "graduate". So, I googled such expressions as "I graduated high school", "after graduating high school","before graduating high school", and found so many hits as I cannot ignore.

Do you think "graduate" can be used as a transitive verb without "from", or still better with "from"?

Thank you.

yoshi-pooh

[pugachevV]

You should use from. You graduate from somewhere. I know it is often omitted, especially in the USA.

In North American usage, a university, college or school graduates (i.e. confers a degree, or other academic qualification on) those students that come up to a certain standard. In this case the verb is transitive.