Faber materiam ad statuam eligit.

Because faber is one of the second-declension masculine nouns whose nominative singular ends in -er, not -us. Other common examples are puer and ager.

Its dictionary form is faber, fabri. In this sentence, faber is nominative singular, so it is the subject.

Materiam is accusative singular of materia.

It is in the accusative because it is the direct object of eligit. In other words, it is the thing being chosen.

No. There is only one direct object: materiam.

Statuam is also accusative, but for a different reason: it comes after the preposition ad, and ad takes the accusative case.

So:

• materiam = direct object
• ad statuam = prepositional phrase

Literally, ad often means to or toward. But in this sentence it expresses purpose or intended use.

So ad statuam means something like:

• for a statue
• for making a statue

The idea is that the craftsman is choosing material intended for that purpose.

Eligit is third person singular, present active indicative of eligo, eligere, elegi, electum, meaning choose or select.

So eligit means he/she chooses or chooses.

Because the subject is faber (the craftsman), the full sense is the craftsman chooses.

We know this because:

• faber is in the nominative case, which normally marks the subject.
• eligit is singular, so it matches the singular subject faber.

Latin relies on case endings and verb endings more than English does.

Because Latin does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So:

• faber can mean the craftsman or a craftsman
• statuam can mean a statue or the statue, depending on context

The context or translation decides which is most natural in English.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order, because the endings show each word’s role.

This sentence has a very normal Latin arrangement, especially with the verb near the end:

Faber materiam ad statuam eligit.

But other orders are also possible, for example:

Materiam faber ad statuam eligit.

That would still mean essentially the same thing, though the emphasis might change slightly.

They are:

• faber, fabri — craftsman, artisan
• materia, materiae — material, wood, matter
• statua, statuae — statue
• ad — to, toward, sometimes for
• eligo, eligere, elegi, electum — choose, select

These are the forms you would normally look up in a dictionary.