Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Etter oppholdet i utlandet ble vennskapene hennes hjemme enda viktigere. - After the stay abroad, her friendships at home became even more important.

“Etter oppholdet i utlandet” = After the stay abroad
This suggests a specific, known stay (for example, the one you already mentioned in the conversation or text).
“Etter (et) opphold i utlandet” = After a stay abroad
This would sound more general/unspecified.

In this sentence, the context is probably a particular stay the listener/reader already knows about, so the definite form oppholdet is natural.

What exactly does “opphold” mean here? Is it the same as “trip” or “travel”?

“Opphold” literally means “stay” – a period of time spent in a place.

opphold i utlandet = a stay abroad, time spent living/being abroad
reise = journey/trip (focus on the act of traveling)
tur = trip/excursion (often shorter, more informal: a trip, an outing)

So opphold focuses on the time spent in a place, not on the movement to and from that place. That’s why “opphold i utlandet” is used here: it’s about living/being abroad for a period, not the travel itself.

Why is it “i utlandet” and not something like “i det utlandet” or “i et annet land”?

“Utlandet” is used in Norwegian almost like a fixed noun meaning “abroad” or “foreign countries” in general.

i utlandet ≈ abroad / in a foreign country (generic concept)
Saying “i det utlandet” would be wrong here; you don’t specify “the abroad” in that way.
You could say “i et annet land” (in another country), but that is more concrete and less idiomatic if you just mean “abroad” in general.

So “i utlandet” is the standard, idiomatic way to say “abroad”.

Why is it “ble” (became) and not “var” (was)?

“Ble” is the past tense of “å bli”, which means “to become”.
The sentence is about a change that happened after the stay abroad:

ble vennskapene hennes … viktigere
= her friendships became more important (they increased in importance)

If you used “var” (was):

Etter oppholdet i utlandet var vennskapene hennes hjemme enda viktigere.

That can sound more like “After the stay abroad, her friendships were more important (than something else at that time)” – it states a situation rather than a change.

Using “ble” highlights that their importance changed as a result of the stay abroad, which fits the meaning best.

Why is the word order “ble vennskapene hennes hjemme” and not “vennskapene hennes hjemme ble”?

Norwegian main clauses follow the V2 rule (verb-second):

The finite verb (here: ble) must be the second element in the sentence.

The first element here is the time phrase:

Etter oppholdet i utlandet – first element (a fronted adverbial)
ble – verb in second position
vennskapene hennes hjemme – subject and its modifiers

You cannot keep the subject immediately after the time phrase without inversion:

❌ Etter oppholdet i utlandet vennskapene hennes hjemme ble enda viktigere.

That breaks the V2 rule. So the correct order is:

Etter oppholdet i utlandet ble vennskapene hennes hjemme enda viktigere.

What form is “vennskapene”, and how does the noun “vennskap” work?

“Vennskapene” is:

base form: (et) vennskap – a friendship (neuter noun)
plural indefinite: vennskap – friendships (same form as singular)
plural definite: vennskapene – the friendships

So vennskapene = “the friendships”.

The sentence talks about all of her friendships at home, as a specific group, so the definite plural is used: vennskapene hennes hjemme = her friendships at home (literally the friendships of hers at home).

Why is it “vennskapene hennes” and not “hennes vennskap”?

In Norwegian, you can place the possessive either:

Before the noun (indefinite)
- hennes vennskap = her friendship(s) (more neutral, less specific)
After the noun (with the noun in definite form)
- vennskapene hennes = her friendships (literally: the friendships of hers)

Here we have:

vennskapene (definite plural) + hennes after it.

This pattern (definite noun + possessive after) is very normal in everyday Norwegian and often feels more natural and less emphatic than putting the possessive first.

You could say:

Etter oppholdet i utlandet ble hennes vennskap hjemme enda viktigere.

This is grammatically correct, but it sounds slightly more formal or marked. Native speakers would typically prefer “vennskapene hennes hjemme” in normal speech and writing.

What does “hjemme” do here? Does it mean “in her house”?

“Hjemme” literally means “at home”, but in this sentence it means:

“the friendships she has back home / in her home country”
as opposed to friendships she might have formed abroad.

So vennskapene hennes hjemme =
the friendships she has at home (conceptually: in her home environment, not necessarily inside her physical house).

It’s about location / context (home vs abroad), not a specific building.

How does “enda viktigere” work? Could I say “mer viktig” instead?

“Viktig” (important) forms its comparative as a synthetic comparative:

viktig – viktigere – viktigst
important – more important – most important

So the correct comparative here is viktigere, not “mer viktig”.

“Enda” here is an intensifier meaning “even”:

enda viktigere = even more important

Putting it together:

enda viktigere = even more important
(higher degree than just “more important”)

You normally would not say “enda mer viktig” in standard Norwegian; “enda viktigere” is the natural form.

Could you rephrase this using “etter å ha vært i utlandet” instead of “etter oppholdet i utlandet”?

Yes, that’s possible and natural, but the nuance changes slightly:

Etter å ha vært i utlandet ble vennskapene hennes hjemme enda viktigere.
= After having been abroad, her friendships at home became even more important.

This focuses on the experience of being abroad rather than on “the stay” as a noun.

Original:

Etter oppholdet i utlandet …
= After the stay abroad …

Both are correct; which you choose depends on style and what you want to emphasize:

oppholdet – a concrete, identifiable stay
å ha vært i utlandet – the fact that she was abroad

What grammatical genders and key forms are used in this sentence?

Key words:

et opphold (neuter) – stay
- definite singular: oppholdet
(et) utland (neuter) – foreign country / abroad
- in practice used almost only as utlandet = “abroad”
(et) vennskap (neuter) – friendship
- plural indefinite: vennskap
- plural definite: vennskapene
hennes – possessive pronoun “her” (unchanged form; same for singular/plural, masc/fem/neuter)
hjemme – adverb “at home” (no gender/number)
enda – adverb “still, yet, even” (here: “even”)
viktig – adjective “important”
- comparative: viktigere – more important

Verb:

å bli – to become
- past: ble – became

All nouns here (opphold, utland, vennskap) are neuter in Norwegian.