A person can wake up without leaving bed. With an object, the expression tells us who or what interrupts another person's sleep.

The idea

Use wake up without an object for your own waking. A noun can go before or after up: wake the baby up / wake up the baby. A pronoun goes between: wake him up. Common forms are wake, woke, woken.

Examples

  • Lea wakes up before sunrise.
  • Please wake me up at eight.
  • The doorbell woke the baby up.
  • The doorbell woke up the baby.
  • I woke up twice during the night.
  • Do not wake him up; he needs some rest.

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Watch out

Do not put an object pronoun after up: use wake me up, not wake up me. Wake without up is also possible in many sentences; the particle is not compulsory everywhere.

Try it yourself

  1. Choose the correct option. Lea ___ up before sunrise. (wake / wakes)

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    wakes

    Wakes takes -s because Lea is third-person singular.

  2. Choose the correct option. Please wake ___ at eight. (me up / up me)

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    me up

    The object pronoun me belongs between wake and up.

  3. Choose the correct option. The doorbell ___ the baby up yesterday. (woke / woken)

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    woke

    Woke is the simple past here; woken is a past participle.

Use it today

Describe when someone wakes up. Then ask a friend to wake you and retell an interruption yesterday, using woke.