Breakdown of Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
Questions & Answers about Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
Мне is the dative case of я and literally means “to me / for me.”
In Russian, feelings like “lacking / having enough / needing” are often expressed with the person in the dative:
- Мне холодно. – It is cold to me → I’m cold.
- Мне нужно учиться. – It is necessary for me → I need to study.
- Мне не хватает времени. – Time is not enough for me → I don’t have enough time.
If you used я (nominative), it would sound like you are the grammatical subject doing an action, which is not how Russians normally structure this kind of idea. Here, the situation (time being insufficient) is what’s “happening to” you, so you’re in the dative: мне.
Не хватает is the 3rd person singular present of the verb хватать in the sense “to be enough / to suffice.”
Literal idea: “is not enough / does not suffice.”
So:
- Мне хватает времени. – Time is enough for me.
- Мне не хватает времени. – Time is not enough for me → I don’t have enough time.
The infinitives:
- хватать – imperfective (present / repeated actions): Мне не хватает времени.
- хватить – perfective (one-time / result): Мне не хватило времени. – I didn’t have enough time (on that occasion).
Note that хватать also has another meaning “to grab” (e.g. хватать мяч – to grab the ball), but in this sentence we’re using the “to be enough” meaning.
Времени is the genitive singular of время.
With хватать / хватить in the meaning “to be enough,” the thing that is (not) enough is put in the genitive:
- Мне хватает времени. – I have enough time.
- Мне не хватает денег. – I don’t have enough money.
- Ему хватает сил. – He has enough strength.
So the pattern is:
Кому? (dative: мне, тебе, ему…) + хватает / не хватает + чего? (genitive: времени, денег, сил…)
That’s why it’s времени, not время.
Here на with the accusative means “for (the purpose of)” rather than physical “on.”
На + accusative can indicate the goal or use of something:
- Время на отдых. – Time for rest.
- Деньги на поездку. – Money for the trip.
- Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание. – I don’t have enough time for homework.
So the structure is:
не хватает (чего?) времени на (что?) домашнее задание
Literally: “To me is not enough time for homework.”
Yes, У меня нет времени на домашнее задание is perfectly correct and very common.
Difference in nuance:
Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
Emphasizes the insufficiency of time: there is some time, but it’s not enough.У меня нет времени на домашнее задание.
Literally: “I don’t have time for homework.”
Often implies zero time or simply states absence, without focusing on “not enough vs enough.”
In many everyday contexts, they’re almost interchangeable, and people will choose based on style and emphasis, not strict meaning.
Russian word order is relatively flexible, and you can move elements to change what is emphasized.
Neutral order (as in your sentence):
- Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
– Fairly neutral: “I don’t have enough time for homework.”
Other possible orders:
Времени мне не хватает на домашнее задание.
– Emphasizes времени (time): “It’s time that I don’t have enough of for homework.”Мне на домашнее задание не хватает времени.
– Emphasizes на домашнее задание as the purpose.
All of these are grammatical. For a learner, the safest, most neutral version is the original:
Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
Both can relate to “homework,” but they’re used a bit differently:
домашнее задание
Literally: “home assignment(s).”
This is the most standard and common term for school homework – specific tasks given by a teacher.домашняя работа
Literally: “home work.”
Can mean:- household work (chores, cleaning, etc.), depending on context, or
- school homework, but this is less standard in that meaning.
In a typical school or university context, when talking about “homework” from a teacher, домашнее задание is the natural choice. So your sentence is exactly what a native would say.
Use хватать / хватить with appropriate tense:
Present (now, generally):
- Мне не хватает времени на домашнее задание.
– I don’t have enough time (in general / regularly).
Past (on some specific occasion):
Here Russian usually prefers perfective хватить:
- Мне не хватило времени на домашнее задание.
– I didn’t have enough time for the homework (that time / yesterday, etc.).
Future (looking ahead):
- Мне не хватит времени на домашнее задание.
– I will not have enough time for the homework.
So the pattern is:
- Present: (не) хватает
- Past: (не) хватило
- Future: (не) хватит
It can be used both ways, depending on meaning:
Meaning “to be enough / to suffice” – often impersonal, with a dative experiencer:
- Мне хватает денег. – I have enough money.
- Ему не хватит сил. – He won’t have enough strength.
Grammatically, you could treat the thing as a subject (“Money is enough for me”), but in practice we rarely think about it that way; we just remember the pattern: > Кому?
- хватает / не хватает
- чего?
Meaning “to grab / to seize” – normal personal verb with a subject:
- Я хватаю мяч. – I grab the ball.
- Он схватил её за руку. – He grabbed her by the hand.
In your sentence, it’s the “to be enough” meaning, which is why you see the dative (мне) and the genitive (времени).
Stress pattern:
- Мне не хвата́ет вре́мени на дома́шнее зада́ние.
Syllable by syllable (stressed vowels marked with ´):
- мне не хвата́ет вре́мени на дома́ш-нее зада́-ние
Notes:
- хватает – stress on та́: [хвата́ет]
- времени – stress on вре́: [вре́мени]
- домашнее – stress on ма́: [дома́шнее]
- задание – stress on да́: [зада́ние]
Spoken fairly normally, it flows as one phrase without big pauses: Мне не хвата́ет вре́мени на дома́шнее зада́ние.