Breakdown of Il dottore guarda la gola del bambino.
il bambino
the child
il dottore
the doctor (male)
guardare
to look at / to watch
del
of the; than the (di + il)
Questions & Answers about Il dottore guarda la gola del bambino.
Why is there no word for "at" after guarda?
The Italian verb guardare means "to look at" or "to watch". Unlike in English, it connects directly to the thing you are looking at without needing an extra preposition. So, guarda la gola means exactly "looks at the throat".
How does Italian express "the child's" without an apostrophe 's?
Italian doesn't use an apostrophe 's for possession. Instead, you always use the structure "the [thing] of the [owner]". Here, that is la gola di (the throat of) plus il bambino (the child). The preposition di and the article il combine to make the single word del.
Could the sentence use vede instead of guarda here?
Would you ever use a possessive word here, like la sua gola del bambino (his throat of the child)?
No, that would sound unnatural. In Italian, when talking about body parts, you typically just use the definite article (like la gola, meaning "the throat") rather than a possessive word like "his" or "her". This is especially true when it is already clear whose body part it is, which del bambino perfectly explains.