Why do I use "que" in this sentence?
So I was looking up some questions I had of spanish and then I stumbled upon an example that went like this: "Tengo que salir esta la escuela ahora."
Which translates to 'I have to leave this school now.' Why do we have to use the "que" in this sentence instead of just saying "Tengo salir esta la escuela ahora?"
Don't they both translate to the same thing?
4 Answers
Hello Unbelievable,
Welcome to the SpanishDict forum 
So I was looking up some questions I had of spanish and then I stumbled upon an example that went like this: "Tengo que salir esta la escuela ahora." Which translates to 'I have to leave this school now.' Why do we have to use the "que" in this sentence instead of just saying "Tengo salir esta la escuela ahora?"Don't they both translate to the same thing?
Frankly ...no, and why should they? Spanish does not have to follow the same grammatical rules as English! Different languages each have their own ways of expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings and Spanish is no exception. 
The first sentence says/means I have to leave. The word to in this first sentence is connected to the verb have, to make a construction have to that means I must leave
whereas the second example, when translated into English, says : I have (to) leave etc...
The word to in the second example is linked to the infinitive of the following verb and is really just used by English speakers to mean to do something, which in this case, is (to) leave. It does not have anything to do with the first verb to have in your second sentence (tengo salir ) and cannot be combined to mean have to Instead the proper construction for to have to =tener que must be used!
The sentence you mentioned without the word que : "tengo salir esta la escuela ahora" is not correctly writtenand sounds bad Spanish.
The Spanish people express the idea to have to by saying Tener que but they would of course conjugate it to indicate the person who was saying it:
In English I have to go out can mean I have to leave the house or simply I have to leave.
In Spanish, I have to leave = Tengo que irme and in this kiind of sentence you do not have to indicate the place you are going to (your destination) or the place from which you leave the house for example, although you can do so, but if you want to say: "I have to go out" meaning I have to leave the house, you would need to say Tengo que salir de casa
So, going back to the sentence you found, this is how to write it correctly
Tengo que salir de esta escuela ahora = I have to leave (depart from) this school now,
Leave in this context means depart from (on this occasion) and does not mean to leave school forever!
Other examples include:
1 Sale de casa/la oficina a las 6 = She leaves the house/the office at 6pm
2 ¿A qué hora te fuiste (o te marchaste ) de su casa? = What time did you leave their house. This uses the verb irse /marcharse = to leave
3 El avión salió de Roma a las 10 . =The plane left Rome at 10
the 3 examples above, courtesy of Oxford Spanish Dictionary, 4th Edn.
Finally, you also would not use:" ... esta la escuela = this the school" in the same sentence like this. You would either use the to you would be more specific and say this school = esta escuela but not both of these words together in Spanish, or even in English for that matter!
I hope this helps
If you want to say that you have to leave school now:
Tengo que salir de la escuela ahora.
Feliz:
But then again, "tengo que salir, está la escuela ahora" makes pefect sense (within context)
:-D
You are not making any sense.... what's your native language?
