After teaching English for a little while, you will hear something like "I'm going to go to there." This sentence is of course wrong, but a student will sometimes ask "why?" I sometimes want to answer "Because it just is." and then smile and change the subject. I think that this answer is not a very good one though. So, let's investigate!

In the sentence "I'm going to go there," 'there' is a directional adverb. But, 'there' can be used as a pronoun. For example, "He came from there (that place), too"

You can also say:

"He ran from here to there (that place)." or "He ran there from here."

But you can't say:

"He ran to there from here."

When a directional adverb is used right after a verb it doesn't need 'to'. We can try this with other directional adverbs:

He ran downstairs.

He ran downstairs from upstairs.

He ran from upstairs to downstairs.

'downstairs' is right after 'ran', so we don't need 'to'. The following are a few common directional adverbs:

Compass Directions -

north, south, east, west, northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest, ...

General Directions -

up, down, upwards, downwards, right, left, in, out, inside, outside, front, back

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