Breakdown of Der Fußball ist für das Kind.
sein
to be
das Kind
the child
für
for
der Fußball
the football, the soccer
Questions & Answers about Der Fußball ist für das Kind.
I learned that für is an accusative preposition, but das Kind looks exactly like it does in the nominative case. Why didn't it change?
You are absolutely right that für forces the noun after it into the accusative case! However, neuter words like das Kind (and feminine words using die) do not change their spelling between the nominative and accusative cases. Only masculine words change (from der to den). So, das Kind is indeed in the accusative case here, it just looks identical to its nominative form.
What would this sentence look like if the football was for a dog (der Hund) instead of a child?
Because für always triggers the accusative case, the masculine word der Hund would have to change its article. The sentence would become: Der Fußball ist für den Hund.
Why is der Fußball in the nominative case instead of the accusative?
Der Fußball is the subject of the sentence—it is the main thing doing the action (in this case, the state of being for the child). The subject of a sentence is always in the nominative case. The accusative preposition für only affects the noun that comes right after it, not the subject of the sentence.
Why are both Fußball and Kind capitalized in the middle of the sentence?
In German, every single noun (a person, place, thing, or concept) must be capitalized, regardless of where it appears in the sentence. Since Fußball (football) and Kind (child) are both nouns, they always start with capital letters.
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