How do you express something is for something

Question

I just can't quite wrap my head around how would you express the existent of something is for a specific purpose. Like, if I want to say "I have an account for Skype" do I say "Skypeのためにアカウントはある" which in my mind just sound like "I have an account for the sake of 'using' Skype"?　On that same line of thought, says, I want to tell my friend to get an account for Skype, do I just say "Skypeのために君のアカウントを生み出す". If you guys can give me some explanations and examples on the whole "express the existent of something is for a specific purpose" or "something for something" (specially on various ways to express them) that'd help me out a a lot.

And please excuse me if my Japanese examples are bad/broken, that's all I could muster with my current knowledge. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

First of all, you are correct that ため can be used to express that something is 'for the benefit' or just 'for' depending on the context. For example,

試験のために勉強する to study (in preparation) for an exam
外国人のための教科書 a textbook for (the benefit of) foreigners

However, I don't think your examples are natural because even in English "an account for Skype" sounds unnatural (to me). It might be possible but most people would simply say "a Skype account", as in "I have a Skype account". The purpose of having a Skype account is already understood so you don't need 'for'. Likewise, in Japanese, it sounds somewhat strange to say スカイプのためのアカウント when you could just say スカイプのアカウント. It's certainly possible to say スカイプのためのアカウント if you are deliberately drawing attention to the purpose of it (it's not grammatically incorrect), but that would be a very specific usage. Usually, the function and purpose is already understood. So you could suggest to your friend:

スカイプのアカウントを作ったらどうですか。How about making a Skype account?

As for "the existence of something is for a specific purpose", I'm not sure quite what you mean. Maybe you're thinking of objects which are designed to have a very specific purpose, such as tools, for example. You could certainly describe such objects by referring to their functions, but then you are simply stating what they do. For example, Japanese dictionaries define 金槌 (hammer) as 鉄で作ったもの。釘などを打ち込むのに使う "an iron tool used to hammer nails (and such)".

I'm not sure if I answered your question but I hope that helps.