Questions & Answers about Voy al trabajo a las ocho.
Why does the sentence use al instead of a el?
In Spanish, when the preposition a (to) is followed by the masculine word el (the), they are always squeezed together to form the single word al. You will never see a el written as two separate words.
Isn't trabajo the verb form for "I work"?
It can be! But trabajo is also a masculine noun meaning "work" or "job". Because it comes directly after al (to the), we know it is acting as a noun here.
Why do we use las before the number ocho?
When telling time in Spanish, you always use a feminine article because you are secretly referring to las horas (the hours). Since eight is more than one hour, we use the plural las.