Questions & Answers about Сегодня мне нужно работать дома.
Russian uses a special “impersonal” construction for I need to do X:
- Мне нужно работать literally: To me it-is-necessary to work.
- мне is in the dative case and shows who has the need.
- нужно is a neutral, impersonal word meaning necessary. It doesn’t agree with я; it just stays нужно.
You cannot say я нужно работать; that’s ungrammatical. With нужно (in this sense), the “person” must be in the dative: мне, тебе, ему, нам, etc.
Мне is the dative case of я (I → to me).
In this construction, the dative marks the person who experiences the necessity:
- Мне нужно работать – I need to work (literally: To me it is necessary to work).
- Тебе нужно работать – You need to work.
So the dative here answers “to whom is this necessary?” → to me.
Both can translate as I need to work, but the nuance is different:
- Мне нужно работать – neutral, often about practical necessity or requirement.
- I need to work (today / now / to earn money / to finish something).
- Я должен работать – more about obligation, duty, or rules.
- I must / I’m obliged to work (e.g., by law, by promise, by moral duty).
In everyday speech, мне нужно (or мне надо) sounds softer and more common than я должен, which can sound stricter.
After нужно (in this meaning of necessity), Russian uses an infinitive:
- Мне нужно работать – I need to work (in general / as an action).
If you said Я работаю дома сегодня, that would mean:
- I am working at home today (a statement of fact), not I need to work at home today.
So:
- нужно + infinitive → expresses necessity of doing that action.
- A conjugated verb like я работаю describes an action actually happening (or regularly happening), not a need.
Работать is imperfective; поработать is perfective:
- Мне нужно работать дома – I need to be working / to work (as an ongoing activity, not just once and done).
- Мне нужно поработать дома – I need to work at home for some time / get some work done at home (focus on a completed period or result).
In your sentence, the idea is simply that today you need to work (spend the day working), so the imperfective работать fits best. The perfective поработать adds a nuance of “do some work (and finish / get it over with).”
Дома here is an adverb meaning at home. It doesn’t need a preposition:
- дома – at home (where you are located).
В доме means in the house (inside the building) and focuses more on physical location inside a building, not necessarily your home, and not the idea of working from home as a concept.
So for work at home / from home, работать дома is the normal phrasing, not работать в доме.
Very common confusion:
- дом – house / home (basic noun, nominative singular).
- Это мой дом. – This is my house / home.
- дома – usually an adverb: at home.
- Я сегодня дома. – I’m at home today.
- домой – direction: (to) home.
- Я иду домой. – I’m going home.
So in работать дома, дома answers where? → at home. If you said работать домой, that would be wrong; домой is used with verbs of motion.
In this sentence, дома is pronounced with stress on the first syllable: дОма. That means at home.
But дома́ (stress on the last syllable) is also a valid word: it’s the plural “houses” (nominative plural of дом):
- Я живу в большом городе, здесь высокие дома́. – I live in a big city; there are tall houses/buildings here.
So:
- дОма – at home.
- дома́ – houses.
In your sentence, the meaning is at home, so the stress is on the first syllable.
Yes, Russian word order is flexible, and all of these are grammatically correct:
- Сегодня мне нужно работать дома. – neutral, slight emphasis on today.
- Мне сегодня нужно работать дома. – slight emphasis on me and today together (as information about my day).
- Мне нужно сегодня работать дома. – slight emphasis on the necessity today (as opposed to another day).
The basic meaning doesn’t change; it’s mostly about which part you highlight. For a learner, you can treat them as practically interchangeable in everyday speech.
Сегодня is pronounced approximately [севодня], with stress on the second syllable: сегОдня.
Historically, the г was pronounced more clearly, and the spelling has kept that old form. In modern standard speech:
- The гдн cluster simplifies, and you mostly hear something like севодня.
So you write сегодня, but you pronounce it as if there were no strong г.
Yes, you can say Сегодня мне надо работать дома; it’s natural and common.
Nuances:
- нужно – slightly more neutral/formal; also used when you specify what is needed:
- Мне нужно молоко. – I need milk.
- надо – very frequent in spoken Russian, a bit more colloquial in feel:
- Мне надо работать. – I need to work / I gotta work.
In most everyday contexts, нужно and надо with an infinitive are interchangeable from a learner’s perspective.
Yes, related forms exist:
- нужен (masc.), нужна (fem.), нужно (neut.), нужны (plural):
- Мне нужен компьютер. – I need a computer.
- Тебе нужна помощь. – You need help.
In your sentence, нужно is used as an impersonal predicative with an infinitive:
- Мне нужно работать. – I need to work.
Here it doesn’t agree with any noun; it stays in the neuter нужно, which is the standard form for this impersonal “it is necessary (to do something)” sense.
It’s neutral and completely natural in both spoken and written Russian.
- You can say it to a friend:
- Извини, я не могу пойти гулять, сегодня мне нужно работать дома.
- You can also use it in a polite or semi-formal context (e.g., with colleagues) without sounding too casual.
If you wanted to be more casual, Сегодня мне надо работать дома is also very typical.
By default, работать дома usually means to do your (paid) work while at home, i.e. work from home, especially in a modern context (office job, remote work, etc.).
But context matters:
- If you’re talking about cleaning, cooking, etc., then работать дома could be understood as working at home in the sense of housework.
If you specifically want to say do housework, you might say:
- делать работу по дому – do housework / do chores.
In isolation, most people would first understand Сегодня мне нужно работать дома as Today I need to work from home.