Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Etterpå er han lettet over at publikum ikke merket feilen og at selvtilliten kom tilbake. - Afterwards he is relieved that the audience did not notice the mistake and that his self-confidence came back.

Etterpå er han lettet …
= Afterwards he is (now) relieved that …
The speaker is talking from a present point of view: as things stand now, he is relieved about what happened earlier.
Etterpå var han lettet …
= Afterwards he was relieved that …
This puts everything firmly in the past, as part of a narrative that is not directly connected to the present.

Inside the at‑clauses we get past tense: publikum ikke merket feilen and selvtilliten kom tilbake. Those events clearly happened before the state of being relieved, which is why a mix of present in the main clause and past in the subordinate clause is natural:

He is relieved (now) that the audience didn’t notice and that the confidence came back (earlier).

If you want everything to be past narrative, you can say:

Etterpå var han lettet over at publikum ikke merket feilen og at selvtilliten kom tilbake.

What does the structure lettet over at … mean, and why do we need over?

Lettet is an adjective meaning relieved, and it normally takes the preposition over before a noun or an at‑clause:

Han er lettet over nyheten. – He is relieved about the news.
Han er lettet over at det gikk bra. – He is relieved that it went well.

So the pattern is:

(å være) lettet over + [something]
(å være) lettet over at + [clause]

Here, over has the abstract meaning about / because of / regarding.
You would not normally say lettet at …; native speech almost always has over here. It would sound incomplete or foreign without it.

Could we use fordi instead of over at, like Han er lettet fordi publikum ikke merket feilen? Is there any difference?

You can use fordi, but there is a nuance:

Han er lettet over at publikum ikke merket feilen.
Focuses on his feeling about the fact that they didn’t notice; very idiomatic with lettet.
Han er lettet fordi publikum ikke merket feilen.
Emphasizes the cause (because they didn’t notice). This is also correct, but with lettet the over at‑construction is more common and sounds more natural, especially in writing.

In many contexts both are acceptable, but if you’re unsure, use lettet over at ….

Why is it er lettet and not ble lettet or ble letta? What is the difference?

er lettet = is relieved (describes his current state)
ble lettet = became/was relieved (focuses on the moment of change)

In your sentence:

Etterpå er han lettet …
describes his emotional state afterwards, from the chosen reference point.

If you say:

Etterpå ble han lettet over at …

you put more focus on the moment where the relief appears, as part of the narrative sequence: first something happened, then he became relieved.

Both can be correct; they just highlight different aspects:

er lettet: the state
ble lettet: the transition into that state

Why is the word order at publikum ikke merket feilen and not at publikum merket ikke feilen?

Norwegian has different word order rules in main clauses and subordinate clauses.

In a subordinate clause with at, the typical order is:

[at] + subject + (adverbs like ikke) + finite verb + objects

So:

at publikum ikke merket feilen
= at (subordinator) + publikum (subject) + ikke (negation) + merket (verb) + feilen (object)

The version at publikum merket ikke feilen is normally incorrect in standard Norwegian.
The pattern [subject] + [verb] + ikke belongs to main clauses:

Publikum merket ikke feilen. (main clause)
… at publikum ikke merket feilen. (subordinate)

So: in at‑clauses, put ikke before the verb.

Why is at repeated in … at publikum ikke merket feilen og at selvtilliten kom tilbake? Could we drop the second at?

You can drop the second at, but repeating it is very natural and often clearer.

With repetition (your sentence):
… over at [publikum ikke merket feilen] og at [selvtilliten kom tilbake].
→ Two clearly separate reasons for being relieved.
Without repetition:
… over at publikum ikke merket feilen og selvtilliten kom tilbake.
Grammatically still possible, but it’s heavier to read and slightly less clear; everything sits inside one long at‑clause.

In careful writing, especially with longer clauses, Norwegian tends to repeat the subordinator (at, når, hvis, etc.) to keep things tidy:

Han er glad for at du kom og at du hjalp ham.

Why is the sentence starting with Etterpå and not Han? Could we say Han er lettet etterpå … instead?

Norwegian main clauses follow the V2 rule: the finite verb must be in second position, regardless of what comes first.

Your sentence:

Etterpå (1st position)
er (2nd – the verb)
han (3rd – subject)
lettet …

This is perfectly normal and puts extra emphasis on the time (afterwards).

You could say:

Han er lettet etterpå over at publikum ikke merket feilen …

but it sounds a bit clumsier and shifts focus slightly more onto him than onto the sequence of events. The most natural options are:

Etterpå er han lettet over at … (time-focused)
Han er lettet over at … etterpå. (if you really want etterpå at the end)

Just remember: whatever you put first, the verb must still be in second position.

What kind of noun is publikum? Why is there no article, like et publikum or publikummet?

Publikum means audience and is a collective noun in Norwegian.

It is grammatically singular (neuter: et publikum).
In practice, it is very often used without an article to mean the audience (present in this situation), a bit like a generic group:
- Publikum lo. – The audience laughed.
- Publikum klappet høyt. – The audience clapped loudly.

Using et publikum is possible, but it usually means an audience in a more countable sense, like “They had a big audience”:

De hadde et stort publikum.

In your sentence, publikum refers to the concrete audience at his performance. Norwegian just leaves out the article here; context makes it specific.

Why is it feilen and selvtilliten in the definite form?

Norwegian uses the definite form (with the suffix -en/-et/-a) to mean the in English.

feilen = the mistake
selvtilliten = the self-confidence / his self-confidence

They are definite because both refer to specific, known things:

feilen: the particular mistake he made
selvtilliten: his particular self-confidence that went away and then returned

If you said en feil, it would sound like some (unspecified) mistake; that would not fit well if the context already has one clear mistake in focus.

Similarly, selvtillit without the -en would be more like self-confidence in general, not specifically his confidence in this situation.

Why is it merket feilen and not la merke til feilen? Aren’t both used to mean “noticed the mistake”?

Both are used for notice, but with slightly different constructions:

å merke noe
- Simple verb + direct object
- Publikum merket feilen. – The audience noticed the mistake.
å legge merke til noe
- Fixed expression (literally “lay notice to”)
- Publikum la ikke merke til feilen. – The audience did not notice the mistake.

In everyday speech, legge merke til is very common and maybe a bit more idiomatic for “notice”.
Using merke with a direct object, like merket feilen, is also correct and quite normal, especially in written language.

So you could rewrite the sentence as:

… over at publikum ikke la merke til feilen …

That would be perfectly natural Norwegian too.

Why is it kom tilbake for selvtilliten, and not something like fikk selvtilliten tilbake or har kommet tilbake?

All of these are possible, but they highlight slightly different things:

selvtilliten kom tilbake
= the confidence came back
Neutral, simple past event: at some point, it returned.
fikk selvtilliten tilbake
= got the confidence back / regained his confidence
Emphasizes him as the one regaining something.
selvtilliten har kommet tilbake
= the confidence has come back
Present perfect; stresses that the result is relevant now.

In your sentence, kom tilbake is a straightforward preterite form describing what happened after the mistake. Using har kommet tilbake would also be possible, but it would put a bit more emphasis on the present result (that his confidence is now back).

Kom igjen would not work here; that means things like “come again”, “try again”, or even “come on!” (as encouragement).

What is the gender and form of selvtilliten? Why -en at the end?

Selvtillit is a common gender noun (traditionally “masculine”) in Bokmål:

Indefinite singular: en selvtillit – (a) self-confidence
Definite singular: selvtilliten – the self-confidence

So -en at the end is the definite suffix.

The noun is abstract and hardly ever used in the plural, so you basically only need:

selvtillit (general, indefinite)
selvtilliten (specific, definite – usually “his/her self-confidence” in context)

Why is there no comma before og in … ikke merket feilen og at selvtilliten kom tilbake? English might allow a comma there.

Norwegian comma rules are stricter than English in this area.

You typically do not put a comma before og when it connects:

two parts of the same clause, or
two subordinate clauses that act together as the same element.

Here, both at publikum ikke merket feilen and at selvtilliten kom tilbake are:

at‑clauses
functioning together as the complement of lettet over

So no comma is needed:

Han er lettet over at publikum ikke merket feilen og at selvtilliten kom tilbake.

A comma before og is mainly used when you join two main clauses, or in some special clarity/intonation cases.