Vi ventet en evighet.

Ventet is the preterite (simple past) form of the verb å vente.

• å vente = to wait
• venter = wait / am waiting / is waiting
• ventet = waited
• har ventet = have waited / has waited

So Vi ventet en evighet uses the simple past: We waited ...

Vi is the subject of the sentence, and it means we.

Norwegian basic sentence structure here is:

• Vi = subject
• ventet = verb
• en evighet = object / time expression

So the pattern is very similar to English: We waited ages.

In Norwegian, expressions like en evighet can be used directly after the verb without adding a separate word for for.

So Norwegian says:

• Vi ventet en evighet

Literally this looks like We waited an eternity, but idiomatically it corresponds to English We waited for ages or We waited forever.

This is normal with time-length expressions in Norwegian. You can also compare:

• Jeg sov hele dagen = I slept all day
• Han jobbet to timer = He worked two hours

Evighet is a noun, and here it is indefinite singular, so it needs an indefinite article.

The noun is commonly treated as a common gender noun, so the article is en:

• en evighet = an eternity

In Bokmål, many feminine nouns can also take ei, but in practice en is extremely common and often preferred in standard written Norwegian. So en evighet is completely normal.

Without the article, evighet would sound incomplete in this sentence.

Evighet is a noun meaning eternity.

Typical Bokmål forms are:

• en evighet = an eternity
• evigheten = the eternity
• evigheter = eternities
• evighetene = the eternities

In this sentence, only the indefinite singular form is needed: en evighet.

Usually, no. In everyday speech, en evighet is very often idiomatic and means a very long time.

So Vi ventet en evighet usually means something like:

• We waited forever.
• We waited for ages.
• We waited an eternity.

It is a strong, slightly dramatic way to say the wait felt very long.

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly.

• Vi ventet en evighet = We waited a long time.
  This sounds like a completed event in the past.

• Vi har ventet en evighet = We have waited forever / We’ve been waiting ages.
  This often connects the waiting more directly to the present situation.

So if the waiting is finished and you are just telling the story, ventet works well. If the waiting still feels relevant now, har ventet may be more natural.

This is the normal main-clause word order in Norwegian:

• Vi (subject)
• ventet (finite verb)
• en evighet (object / complement)

Norwegian main clauses usually put the finite verb in the second position. Since the subject comes first here, the sentence looks very straightforward.

If another element came first, the word order would change:

• I går ventet vi en evighet. = Yesterday we waited forever.

Notice that ventet still stays in second position.

A simple learner-friendly approximation is:

vee VEN-tet en EH-vee-het

A few notes:

• Vi sounds like vee
• ventet has a clear v and t sound
• evighet is roughly EH-vee-het, though real pronunciation varies by speaker and dialect

The g in evighet is not pronounced like a hard English g in many normal pronunciations.

Yes, often it can.

Norwegian preterite does not always make the same distinction English makes between:

• waited
• was waiting

So Vi ventet en evighet will usually be understood as We waited forever. In context, it could sometimes overlap with We were waiting for ages, but English often forces a choice that Norwegian does not always mark as clearly.

Yes, very natural.

Vi ventet en evighet is a common, idiomatic way to complain that something took a long time. It sounds everyday and conversational.

Similar natural expressions are:

• Jeg har ventet en evighet. = I’ve waited forever.
• Hun brukte en evighet. = She took forever.
• Det tok en evighet. = It took forever.