Adik pulang ke rumah selepas belajar.

In this sentence, adik most naturally means younger sibling or younger child.

A few useful notes:

• It is not gender-specific. It can refer to a younger brother or a younger sister.
• In real life, adik can also be used as a term of address for a younger person, not only a literal sibling.
• Because it is at the beginning of the sentence, it is capitalized as Adik, but that does not automatically mean it is a personal name.

So here, adik is functioning as the subject of the sentence.

Not always.

Besides meaning a literal younger sibling, adik is also commonly used in Malay to address or refer to:

• a younger relative
• a younger child
• a younger person in general

So depending on context, adik can be:

• a family term
• a social term of address
• sometimes almost like a role label rather than a strict biological relationship

In this sentence alone, the safest reading is simply that Adik refers to the younger sibling / the younger one.

Pulang specifically means to go home or to return home.

That makes it a very natural choice with rumah.

By contrast, balik means to return / to go back, and it is often more general. It can be used for going back to many places, not just home.

So:

• pulang = return home
• balik = go back / return

In everyday speech, people do sometimes use balik in situations involving home too, but pulang ke rumah sounds very natural and slightly more specific.

Ke is a preposition meaning to.

So:

• ke rumah = to home / to the house, more naturally home

It shows the direction of movement.

A very important point for learners:
ke here is written as a separate word because it is a preposition.

This is different from the prefix ke-, which attaches to a word in other grammar patterns.

Malay generally does not use articles like a, an, and the the way English does.

So rumah can mean:

• house
• the house
• a house
• home

The exact meaning depends on context.

In this sentence, ke rumah is best understood as home or to the house, depending on the context already known.

This is very normal in Malay. You usually do not need to add anything to express the.

Selepas means after, and belajar means study / studying / learn / learning.

So selepas belajar means:

• after studying
• after study
• sometimes, depending on context, something like after class or after lessons

In this sentence, the most direct reading is after studying.

Malay often uses a simple verb form like belajar where English would use an -ing form such as studying.

Because Malay often leaves out repeated information when it is already clear.

In Adik pulang ke rumah selepas belajar, the understood subject of belajar is the same adik mentioned earlier.

So the full idea is:

• Adik pulang ke rumah selepas adik belajar

But repeating adik would sound unnecessary here, so it is normally omitted.

English does something similar in phrases like:

• After studying, the younger sibling went home

We do not usually repeat the younger sibling inside the after phrase either.

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense the way English verbs do.

So pulang and belajar do not themselves tell you whether the action is:

• present
• past
• future

The time is usually understood from:

• context
• time words
• extra markers like sudah, telah, akan, and so on

So this sentence could mean different things depending on context, such as:

• The younger sibling goes home after studying
• The younger sibling went home after studying
• The younger sibling will go home after studying

If you want to make the past clearer, you could say something like Adik sudah pulang ke rumah selepas belajar in the right context.

No. Belajar can be used on its own.

So belajar by itself means:

• to study
• to be studying
• to learn

That is why selepas belajar is completely natural.

If you want to say what someone is studying, you can add an object or complement, for example:

• belajar bahasa Melayu = study Malay
• belajar matematik = study mathematics

But in your sentence, no object is needed because the general idea of studying is enough.

Yes. A very common alternative is:

Selepas belajar, adik pulang ke rumah.

This means the same thing, but the emphasis changes slightly:

• Adik pulang ke rumah selepas belajar puts the main statement first.
• Selepas belajar, adik pulang ke rumah puts the time phrase first.

Both are natural. Malay is fairly flexible with this kind of time expression.

It can feel a little repetitive from an English-speaking perspective, but it is still natural Malay.

Because pulang already carries the idea of going home, you may also hear simply:

• Adik pulang selepas belajar

However, adding ke rumah can make the destination extra explicit. It is not wrong.

So:

• pulang = already implies home
• pulang ke rumah = explicitly says home

Both are acceptable, and the longer version is common enough.

Yes, in some contexts.

Common alternatives include:

• setelah — also means after, often a bit more formal
• lepas — common in everyday speech, more conversational

So you might also hear:

• Adik pulang ke rumah setelah belajar
• Adik pulang ke rumah lepas belajar

All are understandable, but selepas is a good standard choice.