Mater iam domum redire potest.

Mater is nominative singular, so it is the subject of the sentence. In this sentence, potest is a third-person singular verb, so it matches mater: mother can...

With third-declension nouns like mater, the nominative singular often has no special ending, so you learn the form as a vocabulary item.

Latin has no definite or indefinite article, so it does not have separate words for the, a, or an.

That means mater can mean mother, the mother, or sometimes my mother, depending on context. The surrounding situation tells you which is most natural in English.

Iam often means now, already, or by now. Its exact shade depends on context.

In this sentence, it suggests that the situation has changed: Mother can return home now or Mother can already return home. The idea is that returning home is possible at this point.

Latin often uses the accusative without a preposition to express motion toward home. So domum means homeward / to home / home.

This is a very common idiom:

• domum ire = to go home
• domum redire = to return home

So domum is not just an ordinary accusative object here; it is an accusative of motion toward place.

For home, Latin normally prefers domum without a preposition when the meaning is motion toward home.

Using ad domum is not the normal way to say home in this sense. It would sound more like motion toward a specific house or building, rather than the idiomatic idea of going home.

Because potest means can / is able, and after possum Latin normally uses an infinitive.

So the structure is:

• potest = can
• redire = to return

Together: can return

If you used redit, that would make returns a separate finite verb, which would not fit this structure.

Potest is the third-person singular present active indicative of possum, posse, potui.

It means he/she/it can or is able. Here it refers to mater, so it means she can.

Redire is the present active infinitive of redeo, redire, meaning to go back or to return.

It is built from:

• re- = back
• ire = to go

So redire literally means to go back.

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order because the endings do much of the grammatical work.

This sentence could be rearranged in several ways without changing the basic meaning. The chosen order may reflect emphasis or style. For example:

• Mater iam domum redire potest
• Iam mater domum redire potest
• Mater domum redire iam potest

All can mean roughly the same thing. The original order is perfectly natural.

Either can work, depending on context.

• If the idea is at this moment, then now fits.
• If the idea is sooner than expected or at last, then already fits.

Latin iam often covers both ideas, and English chooses whichever sounds best in context.

Not in the ordinary sense. Redire is not taking domum as a normal object like see the house or carry the book.

Instead, domum is an accusative showing motion toward a place, specifically the special idiom for home. So it is better understood as where to? rather than what?

The main verb potest is present tense, so the sentence is in the present: Mother can return home now.

The infinitive redire does not itself mark a separate tense here in the way an English finite verb would. Its time is understood from the main verb potest.