What is the difference between despertar and despertarse?

Question

What is the difference between despertar and despertarse?

Answer 1

You can despertar somebody else and despertarse yourself

La mamá despierta a su niña.

Me despierto cada día a las seis y media.

Despertarse is a reflexive verb and is conjugated with reflexive pronouns. I recommend this article and this lesson.

Answer 2

HI kitty, you can wake somebody up, despertar, or you can yourself wake up, despertarse.

Answer 3

Ok talked to my co-worker from Barcelona and he says this:

"I wake up" by itself is always "Me despierto". If you say "yo despierto" you're implying something like "I wake up from a dream". He doesn't expect to see this phrase by itself. I suppose there is a subtle difference. Maybe the lyric above might mean

"I wake up to find you gone" as in she wakes up to the fact that he is gone.

That'd work for me.

Answer 4

Gfreed

Not exactly since "despertar" can also be intransitive meaning the exact same as "despertarse". I didn't wanna believe it either but see my thread here :

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/138493/is-this-lyric-positive-or-negative-i-cant-tell

And the fact that despertar is also intransitive according to this site.

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/despertar

This means that the original question of this post hasn't really been answered as far as I see. Some people think "despertar" intransitively used means "awake" and reflexively used means "to wake oneself up" but I'm not sure I see any real proof for that. For now I have to live with "despertarse is most commonly used but "despertar" is also acceptable as "to wake up".

Sorry, I should have said pronominally not intransitively. - 0074b507, May 3, 2010

I wishthat our dictionary had provided an intransitive example to show if a pronoun was used or not. It doesn't confirm that Yo despierto is the intransitive form. It could use a i.o.p. - 0074b507, May 3, 2010

as with gustar-like verbs or even use the detransitizing se. - 0074b507, May 3, 2010

Answer 5

Unless somebody on this thread has any idea why this lyric is using "despertar"

A veces creo que he muerto cuando no estás y yo despierto

When it can only mean "when you're not there and I wake up".

Answer 6

Just to toss in the grammar terms.

Despertar is used transitively and any pronouns involved are object pronouns.

Despertarse is used intransitively and the pronouns are reflexive pronouns.

Despiértalo. (object pronoun)

Se despierta. (reflexive pronoun)

Answer 7

I was going to direct you to the dictionary but it only gives the definition of despertar.

Despertarse is talking about a person waking themselves up. For example,

¿Cúando te despertaste hoy? (When did you wake up today?)

Me desperté a las siete. (I woke up at seven.)