Ég vildi óska að ég væri jafn skipulagður og systir mín þegar hún undirbýr ferðalag.

Yes, literally ég vildi óska looks like I wanted to wish, but in actual usage it often works like English I wish.

This is a common Icelandic way to introduce a wish about something unreal, unlikely, or contrary to the current situation. So in a sentence like this, you should understand it as a wish, not as a real past action.

A few things to notice:

• vildi is the past tense of vilja = to want
• óska = to wish
• together, ég vildi óska að... means something like I wish that...

It is similar in feeling to English I wish I were..., where the form looks past, but the meaning is about a present unreal situation.

Because væri is the subjunctive form of vera = to be, and Icelandic commonly uses the subjunctive after expressions of wishing.

So:

• er = indicative, ordinary statement: I am
• væri = subjunctive, used for wishes, hypotheticals, unreal situations: I were / would be

In this sentence, the speaker is not saying I am as organized as my sister. The speaker is expressing a wish about a situation that is not true right now. That is why væri is the correct form.

This is very close to formal English I wish I were...

Formally, væri is connected with the past subjunctive system, but here it does not mean past time.

This is an important point for English speakers: in both English and Icelandic, past-looking forms are often used to express distance from reality, not actual past time.

So here:

• vildi óska að ég væri... = a present wish about an unreal present situation

It means the speaker wishes they were more organized now or in general, not that they wished this only in the past.

Yes. Skipulagður agrees with the person described, and here that person is ég = I.

In Icelandic, adjectives change for:

• gender
• number
• case

Here it is singular nominative, because it describes the subject ég. The form shown, skipulagður, is the masculine singular nominative form.

If the speaker were female, the sentence would normally use:

• skipulögð = feminine singular nominative

So:

• masculine speaker: Ég vildi óska að ég væri jafn skipulagður...
• feminine speaker: Ég vildi óska að ég væri jafn skipulögð...

This is a very common thing to notice in Icelandic: first-person sentences still show grammatical gender through adjectives and participles.

Jafn ... og means as ... as.

So the structure is:

• jafn
  • adjective + og

In this sentence:

• jafn skipulagður og systir mín = as organized as my sister

This is the normal Icelandic way to make an equality comparison.

More examples:

• jafn stór og = as big as
• jafn góður og = as good as
• jafn fljótur og = as fast as

In ordinary Icelandic, possessive pronouns very often come after the noun:

• systir mín = my sister
• bíllinn minn = my car
• húsið mitt = my house

That is the most neutral, everyday pattern.

You can also say mín systir, but that usually sounds more emphatic, contrastive, poetic, or marked in some way, as if you were stressing my.

So in a normal sentence like this, systir mín is the natural choice.

Because the sentence is talking about a general or repeated situation, not one specific event in the past.

The idea is something like:

• whenever she prepares for a trip
• when she is preparing a trip
• in situations where she prepares for travel

So the present tense makes sense because it describes her usual behavior or a general truth about her.

If you wanted to talk about one specific past occasion, you would use a past form instead.

Also note that þegar here means when.

Undirbýr is the 3rd person singular present tense of undirbúa, which means to prepare.

So:

• infinitive: undirbúa
• ég undirbý = I prepare
• hún undirbýr = she prepares

The verb has a vowel change, so the present-tense forms do not look exactly like the infinitive. That is normal for many Icelandic verbs.

In this sentence:

• hún undirbýr ferðalag = she prepares a trip / she gets a trip ready

It is the accusative singular, because it is the direct object of undirbýr.

The verb undirbúa takes an object, and that object is in the accusative case.

For ferðalag, the nominative and accusative singular happen to look the same:

• nominative: ferðalag
• accusative: ferðalag

So you cannot tell just from the ending here, but syntactically it is the accusative object.

Because Icelandic often leaves nouns without an article when the meaning is general or indefinite.

So ferðalag here is like:

• a trip
• travel
• a journey

It is not necessarily referring to one specific, already identified trip.

If the speaker meant a specific trip known to both speaker and listener, Icelandic might use the definite form depending on context. But in this sentence, the general indefinite sense is natural.

Because after að introducing a subordinate clause, Icelandic normally uses regular subordinate-clause word order:

• að ég væri...
• that I were...

Likewise:

• þegar hún undirbýr ferðalag
• when she prepares a trip

This is different from the verb-second pattern you often see in main clauses in Icelandic. In subordinate clauses introduced by words like að or þegar, the subject commonly comes before the finite verb.

Yes. Icelandic often allows small stylistic variations.

For example, you may also encounter other ways of expressing wishes, depending on tone and formality. But the sentence you have is very natural and idiomatic.

The main features that make it work are:

• ég vildi óska að... to introduce a wish
• væri in the subjunctive
• jafn ... og for comparison
• normal noun + possessive order in systir mín
• present tense in the þegar clause for a general habit

So even if you see slightly different wording elsewhere, this sentence is a very good model for how Icelandic expresses I wish I were as ... as ... when ...