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I'd waited. And waited. And waited even more.

How may one write the above in German? I'm guessing it is something along the lines of :

Ich wartete. Und wartete. Und wartete sogar mehr.

But none of the definitions and example sentences I checked regarding the word 'sogar' fitted this usage. Is this sentence correct? If not, what other phrases apart from "sogar mehr" can I use?

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    It sounds odd to this native speaker (but I can't say why, maybe an implied comparison is missing? That's why this is a comment instead of an answer). You should add a "noch". Personally, I would also use "länger" (longer) instead of "mehr": "Und wartete sogar noch länger." I'm also not so sure about punctuation in this example ...
    – Roland
    Jul 31, 2018 at 12:21
  • "noch" is the word to use, and for times "länger" is used instead of "mehr". Ex: "Peter hat eine Stunde gewartet. Ich habe noch länger gewartet (als Peter)."
    – JimmyB
    Aug 1, 2018 at 9:56
  • By the way, the rhetorical figure "X, and X, and then more X" is not (yet?) really a common expression in German. It seems to be much more common in (US) English, seeping into common knowledge (but not use) in German through translations of english texts, TV, movies, but (to me) always sounds like a direct translation of an english phrase; you'll rarely find it in natively german works.
    – JimmyB
    Aug 1, 2018 at 10:05

3 Answers 3

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Well, grammatically it is correct, but its unusual.

First of all, you normally wouldn't use Präteritum, but Perfekt. and instead of sogar you would use noch:

Ich habe gewartet. Und gewartet. Und noch länger gewartet.

The complete last sentence would be:

Ich habe noch länger gewartet.
I waited even longer.

Note, that noch in combination with the comparative of an adjective is even in English:

Du bist noch größer geworden, als ich gedacht habe.
You grew even taller than I thought.

Mein Anzug war schon teuer, aber Toms Anzug war noch teurer.
My suit ws expensive, but Tom's suit was even more expensive.

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    First of all, you normally wouldn't use Präteritum, but Perfekt. Hm, to me „Und ich saß dann da und wartete und wartete bis ich endlich drankam“ sounds colloquial and natural (South-Germany).
    – Narusan
    Jul 31, 2018 at 16:08
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For general purpose Huberts answer is correct. For this particular example I'd like to add that the most idiomatic translation into German would be "Ich wartete. Und wartete. Und wartete" - without any translation/version of "even more".

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The previous answers are correct, but some thoughts which spontaneously came to my mind, i.e. how I probably would have written it:

Ich wartete. Und wartete. Und wartete weiter...
Ich wartete. Und wartete. Und wartete noch mehr.
Ich habe gewartet. Und gewartet. Und noch mehr gewartet.

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    "Mehr warten" sounds strange to my native ears, "länger warten" sounds much more natural.
    – Iris
    Aug 1, 2018 at 6:34

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