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Questions & Answers about Der Vater antwortet den Kindern.
Why is it den Kindern instead of die Kinder?
In German, the verb antworten (to answer) requires the dative case. You can think of it as answering to someone. Since Kinder is plural, the plural article die changes to the dative form den.
Why does Kindern have an extra -n at the end?
The normal plural of das Kind is die Kinder. But there is a special rule for the dative case: plural nouns get an extra -n attached to the end, as long as they do not already end in -n or -s. That makes it den Kindern.
Wait, doesn't den mean masculine accusative?
It can! The word den does double duty. It is the article for masculine nouns in the accusative case, but it is also the article for all plural nouns in the dative case. Here, because we are talking about multiple children, it is the dative plural.
Why doesn't Vater change its article?
Der Vater is the subject of the sentence (the person doing the answering). The subject always takes the nominative case, so the masculine article remains der.