Declension of interrogative pronouns 'koji', 'čiji', 'kakav' and 'kolik' - SpeakCRO - learn Croatian online (2025)

In this post, you can learn:

• declension of the interrogative pronoun koji;
• declension of the interrogative pronoun čiji;
• declension of the interrogative pronoun kakav;
• declension of the interrogative pronoun kolik.

We have one more blog post for question-making lovers. If so far you have felt like you can’t express yourself well enough because you know only the nominative version of questions like koji? (which?), čiji? (whose?), kakav? (what (is something) like?), kolik? (how large?), we’ll fix that now by learning their declension!

Just to give you a hint of what we’re talking about:
Čiji si ti? – Whose (son) are you? (čiji – the nominative case)
S čijom se djecom družiš? – Whose children are you friends with? (čijom – the instrumental case)
Iz čije kuće dolaziš? – Whose house are you coming from? (čije – the genitive case)

If you already know what cases (padeži) in the Croatian language are, or rules for each individual case: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, and instrumental, then you have done a big part of the job. Namely, the rules on when to use each case are always the same, no matter what types of words we are talking about. So, the ‘only’ thing left to learn here are the endings.

The good news is that the interrogative pronouns koji, čiji, kakav and kolik change through cases in the same way as, for example, adjectives, or possessive and demonstrative pronouns.

Examples:

1. Nominative: Koje životinje žive u Hrvatskoj? – Which animals live in Croatia?
2. Genitive: Iz kojeg si grada? – Which city are you from?
3. Dative: Kojoj prijateljici ideš danas? – Which friend are you going to today?
4. Accusative: Koja jela želiš probati? – Which dishes do you want to taste?
5. Locative: U kojim restoranima si bila? – Which restaurants were you at?
6. Instrumental: S kojim prijateljem ideš na piće? – Which friend do you go for a drink with?

Examples:

1. Nominative: Čiji roditelji su iz Hrvatske? – Whose parents are from Croatia?
2. Genitive: Od čijeg sina si dobila poklon? – Whose son did you get a gift from?
3. Dative: Čijoj kćerki si kupio cvijeće? – Whose daughter did you buy flowers for?
4. Accusative: Čije vino voliš? – Whose wine do you like?
5. Locative: U čijem stanu živiš? – Whose apartment do you live in?
6. Instrumental: S čijim sinovima ideš u razred? – Whose sons are you in class with?

Examples:

1. Nominative: Kakve su hrvatske plaže? – What are Croatian beaches like?
2. Genitive: Kakvih riba ima u Jadranu? – What kind of fish are there in the Adriatic?
3. Dative: Kakvom poklonu se nadaš? – What kind of a present are you hoping for?
4. Accusative: Kakvog psa želiš udomiti? – What kind of dog do you want to adopt?
5. Locative: U kakvoj kući živiš? – What kind of house do you live in?
6. Instrumental: S kakvim ljudima voliš putovati? – What kind of people do you like traveling with?

Examples:

1. Nominative: Koliko je Jadransko more? – How large is the Adriatic sea?
2. Genitive: Iz kolikog grada dolaziš? – How large is the city you come from?
3. Dative: Kolikoj plaći se nadate? – How large is the salary you are hoping for?
4. Accusative: Kolike jabuke si kupila? – How large are the apples you bought?
5. Locative: U kolikom selu živiš? – How large is the village you live in?
6. Instrumental: Kolikim brodom ste došli? – How large is the ship you arrived by?

How do you find these declensions? Have you noticed how all of them follow the same pattern? Typically our students start learning Croatian with us either from scratch or when they realize that they need help with practicing this type of declension. If you need that kind of help too – we are here, you can contact us. You can have a free 60-minute live one-on-one video lesson with a teacher with no obligations.

Exercise: Fill the gaps with the suitable form of interrogative pronouns in brackets:

Related Croatian language topics that you might want to learn about:

• What types of pronouns are there in the Croatian language?
• Interrogative pronouns and other question words in Croatian
• Declension of interrogative pronouns tko (who) and što (what)