Breakdown of Para mantener el equilibrio, debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso en nuestro día.
Questions & Answers about Para mantener el equilibrio, debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso en nuestro día.
Para + infinitive is the standard way in Spanish to express purpose / goal:
- Para mantener el equilibrio = In order to maintain balance / To maintain balance
Por usually expresses cause, reason, or means, not purpose:
- Por mantener el equilibrio would sound more like because of maintaining balance or for maintaining balance (reason), and is not what’s intended here.
A + infinitive is not used to express purpose in this way. So here, para is the only natural choice.
Spanish uses the definite article much more than English, especially with abstract nouns.
- El equilibrio here means “(the) balance in general / the state of being balanced”, not a specific, physical balance.
In English you’d normally say “to maintain balance”, without “the”. But in Spanish, omitting the article (para mantener equilibrio) sounds incomplete or off.
So:
- Correct, natural: para mantener *el equilibrio*
- Sounds odd: para mantener equilibrio
Traditionally, Spanish makes a distinction:
deber + infinitive → obligation / necessity
- Debe haber silencio en la biblioteca. = There must be silence in the library (it’s required).
deber de + infinitive → probability / supposition
- Debe de haber mucha gente en la playa hoy. = There must be a lot of people at the beach today (I suppose).
In practice, especially in Spain, many speakers mix them and use deber and deber de almost interchangeably.
In your sentence:
- Debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso…
can be understood either as:- There *must be (it’s necessary to have) moments of work and also of rest*, or
- There *should be / probably are moments of work and also of rest.*
A more clearly obligatory version (very standard) would be:
- Tiene que haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso…
Here, haber is used in its impersonal form to mean “there is / there are”. In this construction:
- haber does not agree with what comes after it.
- It is treated as a fixed singular form.
So you always say:
- Tiene que haber muchos problemas. (There have to be many problems.)
- Debe (de) haber momentos buenos y malos. (There must be good and bad moments.)
You never say:
- ✗ Deben de haber momentos… (ungrammatical in standard Spanish in this sense)
So debe de haber is correct even though momentos is plural.
Here haber is the impersonal infinitive meaning “to be / to exist” in the sense of “there is / there are”:
- debe de haber momentos ≈ “there must be moments”
This is the same haber you see in:
- Hay momentos difíciles. = There are difficult moments.
- Tiene que haber una solución. = There has to be a solution.
It is not the auxiliary haber used in perfect tenses (he comido, has visto, etc.), but it’s the same verb in its existential use.
Saying momentos de… emphasizes periods / times of each activity:
- momentos de trabajo = times when you work
- momentos de descanso = times when you rest
If you said only:
- …debe de haber trabajo y descanso en nuestro día,
it would still be understandable, but it sounds more abstract or general, less clearly about time slots.
Momentos de makes it clearer that your day is divided into moments of working and resting.
Both are possible, but the nuance changes a bit:
momentos de trabajo (noun)
- More neutral and standard.
- Focuses on “moments of work” as a type of moment.
momentos de trabajar (infinitive)
- Slightly more colloquial / informal in many contexts.
- Feels more like “moments to work” (closer to an action you are supposed to do in those moments).
In your sentence, momentos de trabajo is the most natural and general choice.
In …momentos de trabajo y también de descanso…, también emphasizes that rest is being added to work:
- There must be moments of work, and also moments of rest.
You could move también, but some positions sound more natural than others:
Very natural:
- …momentos de trabajo y también de descanso…
- …momentos de trabajo y de descanso también. (slightly different rhythm, but ok)
Less natural:
- …también momentos de trabajo y de descanso… (changes the focus: “also moments of work…”, compared to something mentioned before)
In the original, putting también right before de descanso makes the contrast work / rest very clear.
All of these are possible, but they sound a bit different:
en nuestro día
- Very general and neutral: “in our day” (within the span of a typical day of ours).
durante nuestro día
- Slightly more explicit: “during our day”, focusing on the duration.
- Still correct and natural.
a lo largo del día
- “throughout the day / over the course of the day”.
- Very common and idiomatic, maybe even more natural stylistically:
- …debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso a lo largo del día.
En nuestro día is fine, but you’ll often hear “a lo largo del día” or “durante el día” in similar sentences.
Both are possible, with a small difference in focus:
en nuestro día
- Suggests “in our daily life / in our typical day”,
- More personal, includes “us” explicitly.
en el día or en el día a día
- en el día by itself can sound a bit incomplete; usually it’s durante el día or a lo largo del día.
- en el día a día means “in day-to-day life” / “in everyday life”.
So nuestro día makes it feel more like “in our own day (routine)”, slightly more personalized.
Yes, absolutely. These two are both correct and natural:
- Para mantener el equilibrio, debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso en nuestro día.
- En nuestro día, debe de haber momentos de trabajo y también de descanso para mantener el equilibrio.
You can move the phrases para mantener el equilibrio and en nuestro día around to change the emphasis, as long as the sentence still flows and there’s no ambiguity. Spanish word order is fairly flexible in this kind of sentence.
The sentence is neutral and standard.
It works perfectly in:
- a conversation,
- a written text (article, blog, book),
- or a semi-formal context (a talk, a workshop).
Nothing in the grammar or vocabulary sounds especially slangy or especially formal.