Насколько серьёзна протечка?

How serious is the leak?

Breakdown of Насколько серьёзна протечка?

• серьёзный: serious
• протечка: the leak
• насколько: how; how much

Questions & Answers about Насколько серьёзна протечка?

Why is there no word for is in this sentence?

In Russian, the verb to be is usually omitted in the present tense.

So English How serious is the leak? becomes literally something like:

• Насколько серьёзна протечка?
• How serious the leak?

That is completely normal Russian.
If you put the sentence into the past or future, a form of to be appears:

• Насколько серьёзной была протечка? — How serious was the leak?
• Насколько серьёзной будет протечка? — How serious will the leak be?

Why is it серьёзна and not серьёзная?

Серьёзна is the short form of the adjective серьёзный.

Russian often uses the short form of an adjective when the adjective is the main predicate of the sentence — that is, when it means is serious rather than directly describing the noun inside a noun phrase.

Here:

• протечка = the leak
• серьёзна = is serious

So серьёзна works like a predicate adjective.

The full form серьёзная is also possible in some statements, for example:

• Протечка серьёзная. — The leak is serious.

But in a question like Насколько серьёзна протечка?, the short form sounds especially standard and natural.

Why does end in ?