ことか

ことか is an exclamation about how far something went: "how happy I was!", "you have no idea how long I waited!". A question word such as どんなに, どれほど, どれだけ or なんど何度 opens the sentence, and the verb or adjective before ことか is in the plain form, past or non-past.

The sentence is not a question, and nobody answers it. It ends with 。 or ！, not ？. The feeling can be gratitude, frustration, relief or longing; it is strong in every case.

A な-adjective keeps な, or takes だった in the past: どんなにしずか静かなことか, どんなにたいへん大変だったことか. A noun takes だった: どれほどのくろう苦労だったことか.

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ことか belongs to writing, speeches and heartfelt talk. In everyday conversation the same feeling usually comes out with すごく or ほんとうに本当に. The polite form is ことでしょう, or ことでしょうか.