Cestarina nije bila skupa, ali smo kod rampe ipak čekali deset minuta.

Cestarina means road toll or toll fee. It is a feminine singular noun.

It comes from cesta (road), so you can think of it as something like road-fee. In this sentence, cestarina is the subject.

Because cestarina is feminine singular.

In Croatian, words that describe or refer back to a noun often have to agree with it in gender and number:

• cestarina → feminine singular
• therefore bila → feminine singular
• and skupa → feminine singular

Compare:

• Cestarina nije bila skupa. = The toll wasn’t expensive.
• Hotel nije bio skup. = The hotel wasn’t expensive.

This is the past tense with a negative auxiliary.

The affirmative form would be:

• je bila = was

The negative form is:

• nije bila = was not

So:

• Cestarina je bila skupa. = The toll was expensive.
• Cestarina nije bila skupa. = The toll was not expensive.

A useful thing to remember is that nije is the negative form of je.

Because Croatian often drops subject pronouns when they are already clear from the verb.

Here, smo already tells you the subject is we. So mi is not necessary.

• (Mi) smo čekali. = We waited.

The pronoun mi would only be added for emphasis or contrast, for example:

• Mi smo čekali, a oni nisu. = We waited, but they didn’t.

Because smo is a clitic. Croatian clitics usually stand very early in the clause, often near the beginning.

So ali smo kod rampe ipak čekali... sounds natural and standard.

You can say ali mi smo..., but then mi is emphatic:

• Ali mi smo kod rampe ipak čekali... = But we, on the other hand, still waited...

So the version in your sentence is the normal, neutral one.

Kod rampe means at/by the barrier, at the gate, or in this context something like at the toll barrier / toll gate.

The preposition kod often means:

• at
• by
• near

So it gives the idea of being in that location / by that point.

Because kod requires the genitive case.

The noun is:

• nominative: rampa
• genitive singular: rampe

So:

• kod rampe = at/by the barrier

This is a very common pattern in Croatian:

• kod kuće = at home
• kod prijatelja = at the friend’s place / with the friend
• kod liječnika = at the doctor’s

Ipak means something like:

• still
• nevertheless
• all the same

It adds a sense of contrast: even though the toll was not expensive, there was still a delay.

So ali gives the basic but, and ipak strengthens the idea:

• ali = but
• ali ipak = but still / but nevertheless

They do slightly different jobs.

• ali connects the two clauses: but
• ipak adds the nuance of despite that / still

So the sentence does not just say two contrasting facts. It says:

• the toll wasn’t expensive,
• but even so, we still had to wait.

Without ipak, the sentence would still be correct:

• Cestarina nije bila skupa, ali smo kod rampe čekali deset minuta.

That version is a bit more neutral. Ipak makes the contrast more explicit.

Čekali is the past active participle used to form the past tense with smo.

It agrees with the implied subject we.

• čekali = masculine plural / mixed group default
• čekale = feminine plural

So if the speakers are a mixed group, or the gender is unspecified, Croatian normally uses čekali.

If a group of women were speaking, they would say:

• čekale smo

Because after numbers like 5 and higher, Croatian normally uses the genitive plural of the noun.

Here:

• minuta = minute
• genitive plural = minuta

So:

• deset minuta = ten minutes

Compare:

• jedna minuta = one minute
• dvije minute = two minutes
• tri minute = three minutes
• četiri minute = four minutes
• pet minuta = five minutes
• deset minuta = ten minutes

Sometimes yes, but the nuance is a little different.

• kod rampe = by / at the barrier area
• na rampi = more literally at/on the barrier/gate

In real usage, both can appear depending on context, but kod rampe sounds very natural for at the toll barrier / by the gate.

So the original sentence is a good standard way to say it.

Croatian does not have articles like English a and the.

So Croatian simply says:

• cestarina
• rampa

and the listener understands from context whether it means a toll, the toll, a barrier, or the barrier.

That is completely normal in Croatian. Definiteness is usually understood from:

• context
• word order
• shared knowledge
• sometimes adjectives or other details