Expressing Duration
When you want to state how long an action lasts (for example, "all day" or "for one hour"), Croatian uses the accusative case without any preposition.
Masculine and Neuter Time Words
Many common time words are masculine inanimate nouns (like dan, sat, tjedan, and mjesec) or neuter nouns (like jutro and popodne). Remember that for these two categories, the accusative case looks exactly the same as the dictionary (nominative) form.
When you want to say "the whole" or "all", the adjective will be cijeli for masculine words and cijelo for neuter words.
Feminine Time Words
When expressing duration with feminine nouns like večer (evening) and noć (night), the accompanying adjective takes the standard feminine accusative ending -u, making it cijelu.
Note that večer and noć are special feminine nouns that end in a consonant rather than the typical -a. Conveniently, their accusative forms are identical to their nominative forms, meaning only the adjective visibly changes its ending!
Duration in the Past Tense
This rule remains exactly the same regardless of the tense you are using. To say how long someone rehearsed or prepared in the past, simply use the bare accusative time phrase alongside your past tense verb.
