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Vado dal dottore.

Vado dal dottore.
I am going to the doctor.
From Lesson 48:Articulated prepositions with di and da (del, dal)·Italian

Questions & Answers about Vado dal dottore.

Why does this sentence use dal instead of al for "to the"?
In Italian, when you talk about going to a person's house or workplace (like a doctor, a dentist, or a friend), you must use the preposition da. You cannot use a (to) when the destination is a person! Because "the doctor" is il dottore, da + il combines into dal.
How exactly do you make the word dal?
Dal is an articulated preposition, which just means a preposition blended together with a "the" word. In this case, it is the combination of da (to/at/from) + il (the).
What if the doctor was female? How would this sentence change?
If you were going to a female doctor (la dottoressa), you would combine da with the feminine article la. Since da + la becomes dalla, the sentence would be: Vado dalla dottoressa.
Where is the word for "I" in Vado dal dottore?
In Italian, you usually drop subject pronouns like io (I) because the verb itself tells you who is doing the action. Vado is the "I" form of the irregular verb andare (to go), so the io is already understood.

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