Learn Hardcore Dutch: Zij voelt een sterk verlangen om weer naar huis terug te keren. - She feels a strong desire to return home again.

In this sentence verlangen is a noun meaning “desire.” You can tell because it’s preceded by the indefinite article een. If it were the verb verlangen (“to long for”), you would see it conjugated (e.g. ze verlangt) and without an article.

Why isn’t there an article before huis in naar huis?

When you say “to go home” in Dutch, you use the fixed expression naar huis without het. It’s like English “go home.” If you wanted to talk about someone’s specific house, you’d say naar haar huis (“to her house”).

Why do we have both weer and terug in om weer naar huis terug te keren? Don’t they both mean “back”?

They actually have two different meanings here:

weer means “again” (indicating repetition).
terug is the separable prefix of terugkeren, meaning “back” or “to return.”
Together om weer … terug te keren means “to return back again.” Without weer, you’d lose the sense of doing it once more; without terug, you’d lose the directional sense of going back.

Why is terugkeren split into terug te keren instead of writing it as one word?

Terugkeren is a separable verb (prefix terug + verb keren). In an om te infinitive clause, Dutch puts the prefix before te and the verb after: om terug te keren. This splitting is how Dutch handles separable verbs when you add te.

Why doesn’t sterk take an -e ending in een sterk verlangen?

Dutch adjective inflection depends on gender, number, and the article. Verlangen is a neuter noun (het-woord) and it’s used here with the indefinite article een. In that case the adjective stays in its base form (sterk, not sterke).

Why do we need om … te before the infinitive here? Can’t we just say een sterk verlangen terug te keren?

To link a noun like verlangen (“desire”) to an action, Dutch requires the preposition om plus the particle te before the verb. So you always say een verlangen om iets te doen. Without om te, the sentence would be ungrammatical.

Could I use ze instead of zij at the beginning, as in ze voelt?

Yes. Ze is the unstressed, more colloquial form of zij. In everyday speech and writing, people usually say ze voelt. Zij is the stressed form and used for emphasis or in more formal contexts.

What’s the difference between terugkeren, teruggaan, and terugkomen? Can I swap them here?

All three can mean “return,” but with subtle nuances:

terugkeren is the most formal or literary “to return.”
teruggaan literally “to go back,” often emphasizing the departure.
terugkomen “to come back,” emphasizing arrival.
In casual contexts teruggaan or terugkomen would work too, but terugkeren fits best in a formal sentence like this.

Why do we say een sterk verlangen instead of just sterk verlangen without een?

In Dutch, singular countable nouns generally require an article (de/het/een). Here verlangen is a countable noun meaning “a desire,” so you need een. Omitting it would make the noun phrase ungrammatical.