"Gotta" is not a proper word. It is an informal, nonstandard way of saying "got to." You never need to use this word. You never need to say "I gotta." You can always use the standard English, "I have to" or "I've got to," whichever you have learned and know best. You are correct about the meaning. "I have to" "I have got to" "I've got to" all mean the same thing. "I gotta" is an shortened or sloppily pronounced way of saying "I have got to." The "I have" gets shortened, first to "I've," and then, sloppily to "I." The double "t" in "got to" is a little difficult, and the vowel sound in "to" becomes a schwa,, and the result is "I gotta."

I agree 100% with Dan...you NEVER need this word, and honestly, you might say it, but you should NEVER write it. Me he dado cuenta de que muchos hispanohablantes usan "gotta" para sonar genial o como un hablante nativo. Lo siento, no lo hacen. Utiliza por favor los formularios que Dan te da arriba. :-)

pleez eye duno wy peepl rite that all thuh teyeme. -- See what I've done? I'm using the Roman alphabet to write an approximation of the way English actually sounds the way I speak it . But that is wrong, in English we don't write phonetically unless we are writing dialog and want to show that a person has a particular accent. NEVER WRITE PHONETICALLY. 'gotta, wanna , hafta , coulda, woulda, shoulda, mighta, hadda, loven(loving) workn(working), Febuary , cawt(caught) , goen(going) , seeen (seeing) .... etc., are also unacceptable because people actually do not always pronounce them that way, and as I said English is not written in a haphazard phonetic way.

I don’t disagree with the others here. You don’t write “gotta” but everyone speaks that way. And “gotta” is not “bad” English or colloquial. It’s just the spoken form of the language. There are many other examples like this in English, which makes English quite unique from other languages. There’s a spoken form and a somewhat different written form. And, I’d imagine for non-native English learners/speakers that could present a little bit of a challenge learning to distinguish the two. I think I heard it once said that English speakers just like to speak fast and get a lot out in a short period of time. There’s probably some truth to that. You also notice how English avoids long words (compared to German for example, which I also speak) and has to split words into short pieces most of the time. Yeah, English is a weird language in a lot of respects.