Questions & Answers about Ich schreibe meiner Tante eine Postkarte.
Why is it meiner Tante with an '-er' ending if Tante is feminine?
Because Tante is the indirect object receiving the postcard, it must be in the dative case. In the dative case, feminine words change their possessive article from meine to meiner.
Why does meiner Tante come before eine Postkarte?
In German, when a sentence has both a dative noun object (the recipient, meiner Tante) and an accusative noun object (the direct object, eine Postkarte), the dative noun almost always comes first. This is a set word order rule!
Can I use the preposition zu and say Ich schreibe eine Postkarte zu meiner Tante?
While English uses 'to' for the recipient, German relies entirely on the dative case to show who is receiving the action. Using zu here sounds very unnatural to a native speaker. Verbs of giving or sending usually just take a dative object.
How do we know this means 'I am writing' and not just 'I write'?
German does not have a continuous tense like the English '-ing' form. The simple present tense ich schreibe covers both 'I write' and 'I am writing'. You just use context to know which one makes more sense in English!