Breakdown of Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
Questions & Answers about Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
Here собираться means “to intend / to be going to (do something)”.
So Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня is best understood as:
- “He is not going to work late today.”
- or “He doesn’t intend to work late today.”
Literally: “He is not gathering himself to work late today,” but in modern Russian this verb in the present tense + infinitive is a very common way to express intention about the future.
Russian often uses the present tense of verbs like:
- собираться (to intend, to be going to)
- хотеть (to want)
- планировать (to plan)
followed by an infinitive to talk about future actions.
So:
- Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
= “He is not going to work late today.” (future meaning)
Grammatically it is present tense (он собирается = “he is planning / intending”), but the combination present + infinitive gives a future sense, very similar to English “is going to do”.
After собираться (in this meaning “to intend / to be going to”), Russian always uses the infinitive:
- собираться + infinitive
Examples:
- Я собираюсь работать. – I’m going to work.
- Она собирается уехать. – She’s going to leave.
- Мы не собираемся платить. – We are not going to pay.
So here работать must stay in the infinitive because it depends on собираться.
Он не собирается работать… literally: “He is not going to work…”
With собираться to talk about a general plan or intention, Russian usually uses the imperfective infinitive:
- собираться + imperfective infinitive (работать, делать, читать, etc.)
Imperfective here expresses:
- An ongoing activity / process (“to be working”)
- Not a completed “one-time result”
Поработать (perfective) would sound like a single session of working (to work for some time and be done). It can be used, but the nuance changes; it would sound more like “He doesn’t intend to (have a) work session until late today,” which is unusual in this context.
For the very natural idea “work late (as an activity),” работать допоздна with imperfective is the standard choice.
Допоздна literally comes from до (“until”) + поздна (an adverb, related to поздний “late”).
As a whole, допоздна means:
- “until late”, usually late in the evening or late at night.
It does not specify an exact time; it is relative and depends on context and cultural norms. Common collocations:
- работать допоздна – to work late
- засидеться допоздна – to stay up until late
- гулять допоздна – to be out until late
Historically, this expression became a fixed adverb and is written as one word:
- допоздна (correct)
- до поздно (incorrect in this meaning)
Russian has quite a few similar adverbs that developed from a preposition + adjective/adverb, for example:
- дотемна – until it is dark
- досветла – until it is light
- долго (< до + лгъ, old root) – long (time)
So you should memorize допоздна as a single adverb meaning “until late.”
Yes, these orders are grammatically correct, and all are possible:
- Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
- Он не собирается сегодня работать допоздна.
- Он сегодня не собирается работать допоздна.
The basic meaning is the same (“He is not going to work late today”), but the emphasis can shift slightly:
- Version 1 (original) is quite neutral; сегодня just specifies the day.
- Version 2 can put a bit more focus on “today” as the time when he doesn’t plan to work late.
- Version 3 often has stronger emphasis on “today he’s not intending to…”, as if contrasting with other days (e.g. Usually he does, but today he doesn’t).
In everyday speech, all three can be heard and are natural.
Yes, Он не будет работать допоздна сегодня is also correct and natural.
Difference in nuance:
Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
- Focus on his intention / plan.
- Implies: He doesn’t intend to; he’s not planning to.
Он не будет работать допоздна сегодня.
- Focus on the fact about the future.
- Implies: He will not work late today (could be due to decision, schedule, rule, etc., not necessarily his personal intention).
In many contexts they can be interchangeable, but не собирается sounds more like we are talking about his own plans or will.
Yes, there is a difference, and the second version is unusual.
Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня.
Normal, natural: “He is not going to work late today.”Он собирается не работать допоздна сегодня.
Grammatically possible, but sounds awkward. Literally:
“He is going to not work late today.”
This structure (собирается не + infinitive) is rarely used and is usually avoided in everyday speech.
In Russian, it’s much more natural to put не with собираться in this kind of sentence:
не собирается работать, not собирается не работать.
Yes:
- Он не собирается работать допоздна.
= “He is not going to work late.”
Without сегодня, the sentence becomes more general:
- It could be about today, if the context is clear.
- But it can also mean in general / tonight / on this particular occasion depending on what was said before.
Adding сегодня makes it explicit that we are talking about today specifically.
You only need to change the form of собираться:
- Я не собираюсь работать допоздна сегодня. – I am not going to work late today.
- Ты не собираешься работать допоздна сегодня. – You (sg., informal) are not going to work late today.
- Он не собирается работать допоздна сегодня. – He is not going to work late today.
- Она не собирается работать допоздна сегодня. – She is not going to work late today.
- Мы не собираемся работать допоздна сегодня. – We are not going to work late today.
- Вы не собираетесь работать допоздна сегодня. – You (sg. formal / pl.) are not going to work late today.
- Они не собираются работать допоздна сегодня. – They are not going to work late today.
The infinitive работать and the adverb допоздна do not change; only the verb собираться agrees with the subject.