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This is the imperitive "Call the doctor" For -are verbs, you sort of swap the tu and Lei so Tu chiami (familiar) or Lei chiama (formal) means "You call" In the imperitive, you swap them (tu) Chiama (Lei) Chiami so Chiama il dottore generally means "Call the doctor"
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but Sebafleb asked if it could be 'the doctor calls' . I understand: if it is possible, not the general.
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While you can play with word order for emphasis in Italian, I believe "The doctor calls." would most commonly be "Il dottore chiama."
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My professor of Italian in college 20+ years ago told us that only medico is a physician, and dottore is used for anyone with a degree, even a bachelor's.
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He's right but your professor was probably from southern Italy. Up in the north, we say "dottore" or "medico" interchangeably. Also, when you want to talk about a "dottore" as in "college degree" we say "dottore in [put the qualitication]" :) In short: you are right
I do not understand why "he is calling the doctor" is not correct.
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I agree - I also think that is the term that would get more English usage. "He calls the doctor" sounds a little awkward
"Chiama" - present tense - can be translated as either "he calls" or "he is calling" and actually, "he is calling the doctor" is a more natural English translation than "he calls the doctor."
Again, "he is calling the doctor" is a more natural and typical translation. Coincidentally, in this same lesson, the very next item / question is "Il contadino legge il giornale.", which I translated as 'The farmer is reading the newspaper.", and my answer was marked Correct. How is "legge il giornale" any different from "chiama il dottore"?!
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That was 20 years ago. Today the reality is differt. I think the title dottore is protectet one
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when i click on "chiama" to see the translation, it doesn't tell me the translation is shows a weird small picture underneath, same thing on my phone and computer
The reason it could not be he is calling the doctor is because it is chiama and not chiamata
"Chiamata"? I think you must mean "chiamate", which is 2nd person plural, and would be "you (plural) call the doctor". "Chiama" is 3rd person singular: "he / she calls" The right translation is "he is calling the doctor"
