Heute schreibe ich meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

German is a verb-second language in main clauses. That means the finite verb usually comes in the second position, not necessarily after the subject.

So in:

Heute schreibe ich meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

• Heute is in the first position
• schreibe must come second
• ich comes after the verb

This is very normal in German. English usually keeps the subject before the verb, but German often moves another element to the front for emphasis or topic.

A more neutral version is also possible:

Ich schreibe heute meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

Both are correct.

Heute means today and gives the time of the action.

Putting Heute first makes today the starting point or topic of the sentence. It often sounds like:

• As for today, I’m writing...
• Today, I’m writing...

German often puts time expressions early in the sentence.

Because Schwester is in the dative case here.

The verb schreiben can take:

• a person you write to → dative
• the thing you write → accusative

So in this sentence:

• meiner Schwester = to my sister → dative
• eine E-Mail = the thing being written → accusative

The noun Schwester is feminine, and the possessive mein- changes in the dative feminine:

• nominative: meine Schwester
• accusative: meine Schwester
• dative: meiner Schwester

That is why you see meiner.

Because German often uses case endings instead of a separate word like to.

English says:

• I write an email to my sister.

German can express that idea just by putting my sister in the dative case:

• Ich schreibe meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

So the meaning of to my sister is built into meiner Schwester.

Eine E-Mail is in the accusative case because it is the direct object: it is the thing being written.

With schreiben, the pattern here is:

• someone writes
• someone something

So:

• ich = subject
• meiner Schwester = indirect object, dative
• eine E-Mail = direct object, accusative

Since E-Mail is feminine, the indefinite article in nominative and accusative singular is the same: eine.

In German, when both objects are nouns, it is very common for the dative object to come before the accusative object.

So this order is very natural:

meiner Schwester + eine E-Mail

That gives:

Heute schreibe ich meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

You may sometimes see other orders in special contexts, but this one is the standard, natural choice.

Yes, that is also correct.

There are two common ways to express this idea:

1. Ich schreibe meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

   • literally: I write my sister an email
   • uses the dative for the person

2. Ich schreibe eine E-Mail an meine Schwester.

   • literally: I write an email to my sister
   • uses an
     • accusative

Both are natural. The first version is a very common German structure with schreiben.

Because all nouns are capitalized in German.

So:

• heute is not capitalized unless it starts the sentence
• schreibe is not capitalized
• Schwester is capitalized because it is a noun
• E-Mail is capitalized because it is also a noun

This is one of the most noticeable spelling differences between English and German.

E-Mail is the standard German spelling. It is a noun borrowed from English, but German usually writes it with a hyphen.

It is also grammatically feminine:

• die E-Mail
• eine E-Mail

In everyday German, this spelling is very common and standard.

Schreibe is the 1st person singular present tense of schreiben.

The infinitive is:

• schreiben = to write

Present tense:

• ich schreibe
• du schreibst
• er/sie/es schreibt
• wir schreiben
• ihr schreibt
• sie/Sie schreiben

So schreibe matches the subject ich.

Yes. That sentence is fully correct.

Compare:

• Heute schreibe ich meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.
• Ich schreibe heute meiner Schwester eine E-Mail.

The difference is mainly focus:

• starting with Heute emphasizes today
• starting with Ich is more neutral or puts more focus on I

In both cases, the verb in a main clause still stays in second position.

Yes. Grammatically it is present tense.

However, in German, the present tense is often used for the near future if the time is clear from context. So this sentence can mean either:

• Today I am writing my sister an email
• Today I’ll write my sister an email

Because Heute gives a clear time reference, German does not always need a special future form.

A useful breakdown is:

Heute | schreibe | ich | meiner Schwester | eine E-Mail

Which corresponds to:

• Heute = time expression
• schreibe = finite verb
• ich = subject
• meiner Schwester = indirect object in the dative
• eine E-Mail = direct object in the accusative

So a helpful pattern is:

Time + verb + subject + dative object + accusative object

That is not the only possible German word order, but it is a very common one.