Learn Spanish (Spain): Mis amigos van al teatro luego. - My friends are going to the theater later.

In Spanish, the simple present tense can translate to the English "-ing" form. So, van can mean "they go" or "they are going". Since this action is happening luego (later), "are going" sounds the most natural in English.

Why does the sentence use al instead of "a el"?

Whenever the preposition a (to) is followed immediately by the masculine word for "the", which is el, they combine to form the mandatory contraction al. Because teatro is masculine, "to the theater" is always al teatro.

Why do we use mis instead of mi?

In Spanish, words like "my" have to match the word they describe. Since amigos is plural, the word for "my" also has to be plural, which is mis. If it were just one friend, it would be mi amigo.