Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før.

Hun skulle ønske is the normal way to say “She wishes” / “She really wishes” / “If only…” in Norwegian when you’re talking about something that is not true, but you would like it to be true.

• Hun ønsker at forholdet …
  literally: She wishes that the relationship… – this sounds more like a neutral wish, almost like a request or goal. It’s less common in this “if only things were different” sense.

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet …
  is the idiomatic way to express a regretful, hypothetical wish, very close to English “She wishes the relationship were…” or “She really wishes / If only the relationship were…”

You can think of skulle ønske as functioning a bit like a Norwegian substitute for the English subjunctive (“were”), signaling that this is not reality, but a wish contrary to fact.

In Norwegian, as in English, we often use past tense to talk about unreal or hypothetical wishes about the present.

Compare:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før.
  = She wishes the relationship were as simple as before. (But it isn’t.)

Using var shows that this is something untrue right now – it’s a wish, not reality.

If you said:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren er like enkelt som før.

it would sound wrong or at least very odd, because you are mixing a hypothetical wish construction with a plain present tense statement.

So:

• skulle ønske + past tense (var) → wish about the present (contrary to fact)
• Similarly in English: “She wishes it were…”, not “She wishes it is…”

Forholdet til søsteren literally means “the relationship to the sister”, and is best translated as “her relationship with her sister”.

• forholdet til X is the standard way to talk about someone’s relationship with another person:
  • forholdet til foreldrene sine – the relationship with her/his parents
  • forholdet til kollegene – the relationship with the colleagues

Using med here (forholdet med søsteren) is not idiomatic in standard Norwegian for this meaning. You might see med in some informal expressions (e.g. være sammen med, “to be together with”), but for “relationship with someone” as a general abstraction, til is the normal preposition.

Both forms are determined by grammatical gender and definiteness.

1. forholdet

   • forhold is a neuter noun.
   • The definite singular form of neuter nouns is usually formed with -et:
     • et forhold → forholdet (the relationship)
     • et hus → huset (the house)
     • et språk → språket (the language)

2. enkelt

   • enkel is an adjective (simple, easy).
   • Adjectives agree with the gender and number of the noun they describe:
     • en enkel sak (common gender, indefinite)
     • ei enkel sak (feminine, indefinite)
     • et enkelt forhold (neuter, indefinite)
     • det enkle forholdet (definite, neuter or common, with det / den)
   • Since forhold is neuter, the basic form in the indefinite neuter is enkelt:
     • et enkelt forhold – a simple relationship

In forholdet var like enkelt, we’re treating the adjective in line with the neuter noun forhold, so enkelt (with -t) is the correct form.

like … som is the normal structure for comparisons of equality, like English “as … as”.

• like enkelt som = “as simple/easy as”
• Structure:
  • like
    • adjective + som
      • comparison point

Examples:

• Han er like høy som broren sin.
  He is as tall as his brother.
• Det var like vanskelig som jeg trodde.
  It was as difficult as I thought.

So in the sentence:

• forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før
  = the relationship with her sister was as simple as before

som før literally means “as before” and is very idiomatic and common. It implies:

• “the way it used to be”
• “like it was earlier”

It has a nostalgic or back-then feel, but it’s neutral and very natural.

You could say som tidligere:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som tidligere.

This is grammatically correct, but:

• som før sounds more natural, conversational, and emotional.
• som tidligere sounds a bit more formal or neutral and less “personal”.

In everyday speech, som før is usually the better choice in a sentence like this.

The different forms show definiteness and sometimes dialect / style:

• søster – indefinite form: a sister

  • Hun har en søster. – She has a sister.

• søsteren – definite form in standard Bokmål: the sister / her sister

  • forholdet til søsteren – the relationship with her sister
    (context usually tells us whose)

• søstra – also definite, but a more colloquial or dialectal form of søsteren. It is accepted Bokmål but feels more informal and often more eastern Norwegian.

In neutral, standard written Norwegian, søsteren is the most typical form here.

The at (that) introduces a subordinate clause: at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før.

In Norwegian:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før. – fully standard.
• Hun skulle ønske forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før. – also acceptable, especially in spoken or more relaxed written Norwegian.

So:

• with “at” – slightly more explicit and often a bit more formal/clear in writing.
• without “at” – quite common in speech and informal text.

Both are grammatical; this is similar to English:

• “She wishes that the relationship were…”
• “She wishes the relationship were…”

No, that word order and preposition use is not correct.

The phrase forholdet til søsteren is a fixed noun phrase: “the relationship (with) the sister”. The til søsteren must stay together immediately after forholdet to form that unit.

• Correct:
  • forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før

If you say:

• forholdet var like enkelt til søsteren som før

it sounds as if til søsteren somehow belongs with enkelt or var, which doesn’t make sense syntactically or semantically. The prepositional phrase is tied to forholdet, not to the adjective.

So the correct structure is:

• [forholdet til søsteren] var [like enkelt som før].

You would then shift the verb in the clause to a past perfect form to show a wish about a past situation:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren hadde vært like enkelt.
  She wishes (now) that the relationship with her sister had been simple.

To make it parallel to the original:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren hadde vært like enkelt som før.

Contrast:

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før.
  → wish about the present (she wishes it were simple now).

• Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren hadde vært like enkelt.
  → wish about the past (she wishes it had been simple back then).

You could say it, but it’s not the most natural way if the context already makes it clear we’re talking about her relationship.

• forholdet til søsteren already tends to imply “her relationship with her sister” when Hun is the subject.
• Adding hennes (forholdet hennes til søsteren) explicitly marks it as her relationship but can feel a bit heavier and is only needed if there is possible ambiguity (e.g. there are multiple people in play, and you must specify whose relationship).

So:

• In a simple context with only her as the relevant person:
  Hun skulle ønske at forholdet til søsteren var like enkelt som før. – most natural.
• If you must contrast or clarify:
  Hun skulle ønske at forholdet hennes til søsteren var like enkelt som før. – acceptable, but more marked.