Breakdown of Завтра у нас свободный день, и мы не будем спешить.
Questions & Answers about Завтра у нас свободный день, и мы не будем спешить.
Russian usually expresses having with the construction у + [person in genitive case] + есть/нет + thing, rather than with a verb like иметь.
- у нас свободный день literally: by/at us [there is] a free day
- The verb есть (there is) is often omitted when it’s obvious:
- Full form: Завтра у нас есть свободный день.
- Normal spoken form: Завтра у нас свободный день.
Using мы имеем свободный день is grammatically possible, but sounds very formal or unnatural in everyday speech. The natural way is у нас.
нас is in the genitive case (from мы → нас).
The preposition у normally means at, by, near (someone/something) in a spatial sense:
- Я жду у дома. – I’m waiting by the house.
But with a person in the genitive (у меня, у тебя, у нас, у них), it forms the standard have construction:
- у меня книга – I have a book
- у нас свободный день – We have a free day
So у + genitive pronoun is the default pattern for X has Y in Russian.
Both can be translated as a day off, but they’re not the same:
выходной день – an official/non‑working day:
- weekends, public holidays, a scheduled day off in your work week
- У меня выходной в воскресенье. – My day off is on Sunday.
свободный день – a free day in the sense of unoccupied, no plans, nothing scheduled:
- Could be a working day when your schedule happens to be empty
- Or a day off when you simply have nothing planned
In Завтра у нас свободный день, the focus is: our schedule is free; we’re not busy, not specifically on it being an official non‑working day.
не будем спешить is future tense: we will not hurry / we won’t be in a hurry.
- мы не спешим – present tense: we are not hurrying (now / generally)
- мы не будем спешить – future: we are not going to hurry (tomorrow)
Because the sentence starts with Завтра (tomorrow), we need the future form:
- Завтра мы не будем спешить. – fits with tomorrow.
- Завтра мы не спешим. – is also used in colloquial speech, but grammatically it’s present with a future meaning; не будем спешить is more straightforward and neutral.
Russian has two main ways to form the future:
Simple future (one word) – with perfective verbs:
- поспешить (perfective) → мы поспешим – we will hurry (once / in a completed way)
Compound future (быть + infinitive) – with imperfective verbs:
- спешить (imperfective) → мы будем спешить – we will be hurrying / we will be in a state of hurrying
In this sentence, спешить is imperfective, so the normal future is:
- мы будем спешить
If you said мы не поспешим, it would mean something closer to we won’t hurry (won’t make a quick move / won’t rush into it) – more about not taking a single quick action, less about the general relaxed pace of the whole day. Не будем спешить matches the idea of taking it easy overall.
не спеша exists, but it’s different:
- мы не будем спешить – a full verb phrase: we will not hurry / we won’t be in a rush.
- мы не спеша… – an adverbial form, literally we, not hurrying… (like leisurely, unhurriedly).
Typical uses:
- Мы не спеша погуляем по городу. – We’ll take an unhurried walk around the city.
- Завтра у нас свободный день, будем гулять не спеша.
So не спеша modifies how you do something.
не будем спешить states clearly: we intend not to be in a hurry at all.
Yes, that’s perfectly natural:
- Завтра у нас свободный день, и не будем спешить.
Russian often omits pronouns when it’s clear from context who the subject is.
However:
- With мы, it’s explicitly we won’t hurry.
- Without мы, it can also sound a bit like a general, inclusive statement (and we aren’t going to hurry / let’s not hurry).
Both are correct; мы just makes it a bit more explicit.
Because there are two independent clauses:
- Завтра у нас свободный день – complete clause
- мы не будем спешить – complete clause
In Russian, when two independent clauses are joined by и, you normally put a comma:
- У нас много дел, и мы будем спешить.
- Завтра у нас свободный день, и мы не будем спешить.
If the second part were not a full clause (no separate subject/verb), often there would be no comma, but here both parts have their own subjects and verbs.
The normal position is:
- не + auxiliary verb + infinitive: мы не будем спешить
This directly negates the whole future action: we will not hurry.
будем не спешить is possible but has a different, marked emphasis:
something like we will be not hurrying (as opposed to doing something else). It sounds unusual here and would need a strong contrastive context. The neutral, standard form is не будем спешить.
спешить is not reflexive; it’s just an intransitive verb: to hurry, to be in a rush.
There are two common verbs:
- спешить – to be in a hurry, to rush
- торопиться – also to be in a hurry, to hurry
In your sentence, you can say either:
- мы не будем спешить
- мы не будем торопиться
Both are fine and close in meaning. торопиться is reflexive; спешить is not. Nuances are minor here; many speakers use them almost interchangeably in this context.
Yes, Russian word order is more flexible than English, though it affects emphasis:
- Завтра у нас свободный день – neutral, very natural.
- У нас завтра свободный день – also natural; slight emphasis on у нас (as opposed to someone else).
- Завтра свободный день у нас – possible, but sounds a bit more expressive or contrastive, like:
Tomorrow is a free day for us (not for others / unlike usual).
All are grammatically correct; the original version is the most neutral.
Key words with stress marked (capital letter for the stressed syllable):
- ЗАвтра – [ZAV-tra]
- у нас – [u NAS] (stress on нас)
- свобОдный – [sva-BOD-nyy]
- дЕнь – [DEN’]
- и – [ee]
- мы – [my] (like English mɨ, not mee)
- бУдем – [BU-dem]
- спешИть – [spe-SHEET’]
Also note reduced vowels in unstressed positions, e.g. свободный sounds more like svabódnyy than with a clear o in the first syllable.