Как жизнь?

how's life?

Questions & Answers about Как жизнь?

Is Как жизнь? a complete sentence, or is something omitted?

Yes, it works as a complete, natural sentence in Russian.

Russian often leaves out the present-tense verb to be. So a learner may expect something like Как есть жизнь?, but that would be wrong. In modern Russian, the present-tense is/are is normally not spoken.

So Как жизнь? is understood as something like:

• How is life?
• How’s life going?

It is short, natural, and idiomatic.

Why is the word как used here?

Как means how, and in expressions like this it asks about someone’s condition, situation, or general state.

This pattern is very common in Russian:

• Как дела? — How are things?
• Как работа? — How’s work?
• Как учёба? — How are your studies?
• Как жизнь? — How’s life?

So как is the normal word to use when asking how something is going.

Why is жизнь in the nominative form?