Breakdown of Сегодня мне спится хуже, чем вчера.
Questions & Answers about Сегодня мне спится хуже, чем вчера.
Спится comes from the verb спаться, which is an impersonal reflexive verb. In sentences like this, it does not simply mean to sleep in the basic sense.
A more literal idea is something like:
- it is sleeping to me
- sleep comes to me
- I am able to sleep / I find myself sleeping
So Мне спится хуже means not just I sleep worse, but more specifically:
- I’m sleeping worse
- It’s harder for me to sleep
- Sleep is going worse for me
This construction often focuses on the experience or ease of sleeping, not just the bare fact of sleeping.
Because this sentence uses an impersonal construction.
In Russian, with verbs like спаться, работаться, думается, не сидится, the person experiencing the situation is often put in the dative case, not the nominative.
So:
- мне = to me / for me
- not я = I
That is why Russian says:
- Мне спится... = I sleep / am sleeping... in this special experiential sense
Compare:
- Я сплю хуже = I sleep worse
- Мне спится хуже = I’m sleeping worse / it’s harder for me to sleep
The second one sounds more like a state or condition happening to the speaker.
Both can be translated as Today I’m sleeping worse than yesterday, but the nuance is different.
Я сегодня сплю хуже, чем вчера
- more direct and neutral
- simply states a fact about how you sleep
Сегодня мне спится хуже, чем вчера
- more idiomatic in some contexts
- emphasizes the feeling, condition, or ease/difficulty of sleeping
- can sound like sleep isn’t coming easily to me today
So мне спится often suggests a more personal, subjective experience.
The -ся marks this as a reflexive verb, but here it does not mean a literal reflexive action like I wash myself.
In Russian, -ся is used in many ways. With спаться, it helps form a special kind of verb that describes how an activity is going for someone.
Similar patterns:
- Мне хорошо работается. = I work well / It’s easy for me to work.
- Мне не сидится дома. = I can’t sit still at home.
- Ему не спится. = He can’t sleep.
So here -ся is part of the verb спаться, which has this impersonal, experiential meaning.
Спится is in the present tense, and formally it looks like 3rd person singular.
That is common in impersonal sentences in Russian. Even though the meaning involves me, the verb does not agree with мне, because мне is not the grammatical subject.
So structurally, Russian treats it like:
- Сегодня мне спится хуже.
- literally something like Today, to me, it sleeps worse.
The verb stays in this impersonal 3rd person singular form.
Хуже means worse. It is the comparative form of плохо.
So:
- плохо = badly
- хуже = worse
In this sentence, хуже describes how well the sleeping is going.
Compare:
- Мне спится хорошо. = I’m sleeping well.
- Мне спится плохо. = I’m sleeping badly.
- Мне спится хуже. = I’m sleeping worse.
In practical terms, хуже can serve as the comparative form connected with both:
- плохо → хуже (badly → worse)
- плохой → хуже (bad → worse)
Here, it is functioning adverbially, so it corresponds to плохо rather than плохой.
That is because it describes the manner or quality of sleeping, not a noun.
Чем means than in comparisons.
So:
- хуже, чем вчера = worse than yesterday
This is the standard way to make this kind of comparison in Russian.
Examples:
- Он выше, чем я. = He is taller than I am.
- Сегодня теплее, чем вчера. = Today it is warmer than yesterday.
- Мне спится хуже, чем вчера. = I’m sleeping worse than yesterday.
The sentence is comparing how the speaker is sleeping today with how the speaker was sleeping yesterday.
Russian often leaves part of the comparison unstated when it is obvious.
So чем вчера really means something like:
- than yesterday
- more fully: than it was yesterday
- or: than I slept yesterday
Russian does not need to repeat the whole clause.
Because сегодня and вчера are adverbs of time.
They already mean:
- сегодня = today
- вчера = yesterday
So no preposition is needed.
Compare English:
- today
- yesterday
Russian works the same way here.
Russian word order is flexible, so Сегодня мне спится хуже, чем вчера is natural.
Putting сегодня first highlights the time frame: today.
Other word orders are also possible, for example:
- Мне сегодня спится хуже, чем вчера.
- Хуже мне спится сегодня, чем вчера.
But the original version is very natural and probably sounds the most neutral if the speaker wants to contrast today with yesterday.
In Russian, the present tense here often covers the idea of a current condition today, not necessarily only the exact moment of speaking.
So depending on context, it can mean something like:
- I’m sleeping worse today than yesterday
- Today it’s harder for me to sleep than yesterday
- I haven’t been sleeping as well today as I did yesterday
It usually refers to the speaker’s current experience during today / as of today, not strictly one instant.
It can be, but it does not have to be.
Мне спится хуже suggests that sleep is going badly or less easily than before. That could mean:
- trouble falling asleep
- restless sleep
- lighter sleep
- poorer sleep in general
If someone wants to say clearly I can’t sleep, Russian often says:
- Мне не спится. = I can’t sleep.
So the sentence you gave is milder: sleep is possible, but it is going worse than yesterday.
Yes, absolutely.
A very common expression is:
- Мне не спится. = I can’t sleep.
You can also combine this with time words:
- Сегодня мне не спится. = I can’t sleep today.
So спаться is often used in both positive and negative statements about how sleep is going.
Yes, it is a normal and useful verb, especially in everyday speech.
You may hear:
- Как тебе спалось? = How did you sleep?
- Мне хорошо спалось. = I slept well.
- Мне плохо спалось. = I slept badly.
- Ему не спится. = He can’t sleep.
It is common when talking about the quality of sleep or whether sleep comes easily.
The infinitive is спаться.
That is important because the basic non-reflexive verb is different:
- спать = to sleep
- спаться = roughly to sleep/go sleeping for someone, in this impersonal experiential way
So спится is not from спать directly in this sentence, but from спаться.
Not very naturally.
A word-for-word breakdown would be something like:
- Сегодня = today
- мне = to me
- спится = it sleeps / it is slept
- хуже = worse
- чем вчера = than yesterday
But English does not use this structure, so a natural translation would be something like:
- Today I’m sleeping worse than yesterday.
- Today it’s harder for me to sleep than yesterday.
- I’m sleeping worse today than I did yesterday.
So it is better to learn this as a Russian pattern rather than translate it literally.
Yes. Russian has several similar impersonal constructions where the experiencer is in the dative.
For example:
- Мне хорошо работается. = I work well / It’s easy for me to work.
- Мне не думается. = I can’t think.
- Ему не живётся здесь. = He doesn’t find life easy here.
- Детям не сидится спокойно. = The children can’t sit still.
This pattern is useful because it often expresses how something feels for someone, rather than just what they do.