Questions & Answers about У нас очень мало шансов.
Why is шансов in the genitive plural case here?
In Russian, words that express quantity like мало (few or little), много (many or much), and сколько (how many) require the noun that follows them to be in the genitive case. Since we are talking about multiple chances, we must use the genitive plural form шансов.
How do you form the genitive plural for the word шанс?
Шанс is a masculine noun ending in a regular hard consonant. To form the genitive plural for this type of masculine noun, you simply add the ending -ов, making it шансов.
Does мало translate to little or few?
It translates to both! Unlike English, which uses few for countable things (like chances) and little for uncountable things (like water or time), Russian uses мало for both situations. Because chances are countable, it translates to few in this specific sentence.
I know нас means us, but why is there no verb for have in this sentence?
As a quick refresher from earlier lessons, Russian expresses having something with the construction У plus someone in the genitive case. У нас literally means by us or at us. The verb is or are is simply omitted in the present tense, so the sentence literally translates as By us there are very few chances.