Expressing Size and Extent with "koliki"
When marveling at epic infrastructure, you will often want to express awe at the sheer scale of what you are seeing. In Croatian, the exclamatory adjective koliki is used to say "how large", "how big", or "of what size".
Because koliki is an adjective, it must agree with the noun it describes in gender, number, and case. In the nominative case, it takes the standard forms koliki (masculine), kolika (feminine), and koliko (neuter).
Here it is used to describe the immense size of a dam (brana) and its foundations (temelji):
Declining "koliki"
Like all adjectives, koliki changes its endings depending on its grammatical role in the sentence. It follows the standard declension pattern for definite adjectives.
| Case | Masculine Singular | Feminine Singular | Neuter Singular |
|---|
| Nominative | koliki | kolika | koliko |
| Accusative | kolikog(a) / koliki | koliku | koliko |
| Locative | kolikom(e) | kolikoj | kolikom(e) |
When the structure you are marveling at is the direct object of the sentence, use the accusative case. For a feminine noun like konstrukcija (structure), the phrase becomes koliku konstrukciju. If you are talking about standing on the structure, use the locative case with the preposition na.
Describing Epic Projects
To fully capture massive engineering feats, you will need strong descriptive adjectives like ogroman (huge) and impozantan (imposing), alongside structural terms like stup (pillar) and raspon (span).
Notice how koliki easily pairs with these new vocabulary words to express the magnitude of the engineering.