Aren't you ever going to finish

[joham]

Aren't you ever going to finish the ironing?

This sentence comes from COLLINS ENGLISH USAGE. The Chinese translation interpretes it as 'Aren't you going to finish the iron veryt soon?'

I doubt about the interpretation and wonder what the word 'ever' here means.
If the interpretation is right, then can we say 'Aren't you going to finish the ironing anytime?'
Could I ask native English teachers help me paraphrase this sentence please?

Thank you in advance.

[David L.]

Is that ironing going to take you forever(=for all eternity)?
"Aren't you ever going to finish..."
'ever' : at any time, an actual time when = is there going to come a time when you will (actually) have finished the ironing?

'Aren't you going to finish the ironing anytime?' doesn't make sense, nor does it convey the astonishment conveyed by the question, that the ironing seems to be taking the person forever to do, far longer than the speaker expected.

[joham]

Is that ironing going to take you forever(=for all eternity)?
"Aren't you ever going to finish..."
'ever' : at any time, an actual time when = is there going to come a time when you will (actually) have finished the ironing?

'Aren't you going to finish the ironing anytime?' doesn't make sense, nor does it convey the astonishment conveyed by the question, that the ironing seems to be taking the person forever to do, far longer than the speaker expected.

I got it. Thank you, David. The sentence means 'Are you never going to finish the ironing?', doesn't it?

[David L.]

Kind of. Of course they will, eventually. It is more an expression we use, as in 'aren't you ever going to finish that jigsaw' etc etc, expressing the person's feelings, surprise, astonishment, or exasperation that they seem to be taking a hell of a long time!
It does have more the meaning of 'never' in the expression, "Aren't you ever going to learn that he can't be trusted" which is another way of saying, "Will you never learn! He just can't be trusted."