Learn Hardcore Russian: Мне не нравится спешить утром.

Мне не нравится спешить утром.
- “Hurrying in the morning is not pleasing to me.”
- Focus on your feeling of (dis)pleasure right now or in general.
Я не люблю спешить утром.
- “I don’t like (I’m not fond of) hurrying in the morning.”
- Slightly stronger statement about your general preferences or character.

Нравится literally means “is pleasing”; it always uses the dative person:

Мне / тебе / ему / ей / нам / вам / им нравится…

Люблю is the 1st person singular of любить (“to love; to like”):

Я люблю / не люблю…

In everyday speech, for many contexts they’re almost interchangeable here. Native speakers freely use both:

Мне не нравится спешить утром.
Я не люблю спешить утром.

Why is it нравится and not нравлюсь or something else?

Because the subject in this sentence is the infinitive спешить (“to hurry”).

In Мне не нравится спешить утром:

спешить is like a neuter singular noun (“hurrying”)
the verb нравится is 3rd person singular to agree with that subject
- pattern: что? нравится кому?

Compare:

Мне нравится музыка. – Music is pleasing to me.
Мне нравятся книги. – Books are pleasing to me (plural → нравятся).
Мне нравится спешить. – Hurrying is pleasing to me (neuter singular → нравится).

Нравлюсь is used when you yourself are the thing that someone likes:

Я ему нравлюсь. – He likes me (literally: I am pleasing to him).

What case is утром, and why is it used to mean “in the morning”?

Утром is the instrumental singular form of утро (“morning”).

Russian often uses the instrumental case to form adverbial meanings, including times of day:

утром – in the morning
днем – in the daytime / during the day
вечером – in the evening
ночью – at night

These forms function like adverbs of time, so you don’t need a preposition (not в утром).
So спешить утром = “to hurry in the morning”.

What’s the difference between утром and по утрам?

Both relate to “morning”, but:

утром – “in the morning” (usually one specific morning or a neutral/general time)
- Мне не нравится спешить утром. – I don’t like to hurry in the morning (as a general statement, or talking about a typical morning).
по утрам – “in the mornings”, “every morning”, more explicitly habitual/repeated
- Мне не нравится спешить по утрам. – I don’t like hurrying in the mornings (on a regular basis).

Your original sentence already sounds general, but по утрам highlights the repetitive, every-morning nature even more.

Why is спешить in the infinitive? Could I say something like когда я спешу утром instead?

Here, спешить is an infinitive used as a verbal noun, acting as the subject of нравится:

(Мне) не нравится [что?] → спешить утром (“hurrying in the morning”).

This pattern is very common:

Мне нравится читать. – I like reading.
Ему не нравится работать ночью. – He doesn’t like working at night.

You can rephrase with a finite verb:

Мне не нравится, когда я спешу утром. – I don’t like it when I am in a hurry in the morning.

That version is more explicit and slightly more “clunky”; the original infinitive construction is shorter and more neutral.

Can the word order change? For example, can I say Утром мне не нравится спешить or Мне утром не нравится спешить?

Yes, Russian word order is quite flexible. All of these are grammatically correct:

Мне не нравится спешить утром. (neutral, very natural)
Утром мне не нравится спешить. (emphasis on in the morning)
Мне утром не нравится спешить. (emphasis slightly on in the morning as the time that bothers you)

The main rules are:

Keep мне close to нравится.
Keep the infinitive phrase (спешить утром) together.

Small shifts mostly change which part is emphasized rather than the core meaning.

What aspect is спешить, and why isn’t a perfective form used?

Спешить is imperfective. Imperfective verbs are used:

for general statements
habits
ongoing or repeated actions

In Мне не нравится спешить утром, you’re describing a general dislike of the activity of hurrying, not one specific occasion.

Perfective forms like поспешить or торопиться / поторопиться would sound like one finished instance or a concrete intention, e.g.:

Мне не хочется поспешить и сделать ошибку. – I don’t feel like hurrying and making a mistake (one situation).

For a general “I don’t like hurrying in the morning”, the imperfective спешить is exactly right.

What’s the difference between спешить and торопиться? Could I use торопиться here?

They are close in meaning and often interchangeable, but there are nuances:

спешить – “to hurry, be in a rush”; a bit more neutral/standard.
торопиться – also “to hurry, be in a rush”, slightly more like “to be in a hurry” (reflexive form).

You can say:

Мне не нравится спешить утром.
Мне не нравится утром торопиться.

Both are natural. Many speakers might even prefer торопиться here; it emphasizes the state of being rushed.

Why is there не before нравится and not before мне or спешить?

In Russian, не is placed directly before the word being negated. Here you are negating the verb нравится:

Мне нравится спешить утром. – I like to hurry in the morning.
Мне не нравится спешить утром. – I don’t like to hurry in the morning.

You’re not saying “not me” or “not hurrying”; you’re saying that the liking does not exist, so не goes with нравится.

Could I say Мне не нравится утром спешить instead of …спешить утром?

Yes, that’s also correct:

Мне не нравится спешить утром.
Мне не нравится утром спешить.

Both are natural. The change is very small in nuance:

спешить утром – keeps the infinitive and its time adverb tightly together; very neutral.
утром спешить – slightly emphasizes the time (“hurrying in the morning” feels a bit more highlighted).

In practice, both are used; the original order is probably the most typical.

Is there any hidden subject? In English we say “I don’t like to hurry…”, so isn’t я the subject?

Syntactically, in Russian the structure is different:

English: I (subject) don’t like (verb) to hurry (object).
Russian: спешить (subject) не нравится (verb) мне (indirect object in dative).

So, there is no hidden “я” as the subject.
The “subject” of нравится is the thing that is liked or disliked:

Мне нравится музыка. – Music is pleasing to me.
Мне нравится спешить утром. – Hurrying in the morning is pleasing to me.
Мне не нравится спешить утром. – Hurrying in the morning is not pleasing to me.

You are present as мне (dative), the experiencer, not as a nominative subject.

How is нравится, спешить, утром, and мне pronounced and stressed?

Stress and key points:

мне – /mnye/
- one syllable, consonant cluster mn, then ye as in “yet”.
нравится – /NRA-vi-tsa/
- stress on нрА-: нрА-вится
- р is rolled or tapped; -ться at the end sounds like -ца (ts‑a).
спешить – /spe-SHITʹ/
- stress on the second syllable: спешИть
- final ть is soft (palatalized).
утром – /OO-tram/
- stress on У: Утром
- о in -ом is reduced, sounds closer to “um”.

Putting it together (stressed syllables in caps):
MNЕ не НРА-вится спе-ШИТЬ У-тром.