obudzić się
/ɔˈbu.d͡ʑit͡ɕ ɕɛ/word by wordperfective
The Polish phrase for 'wake up' is obudzić się.
obudzić się is used to describe the completed act of becoming awake.
Meaning: to (become) awake (verb)
Which one should you use?
The default form obudzić się is perfective, which focuses on the completed event of waking up. In contrast, the imperfective form budzić się is used to describe the ongoing process of waking up or a habitual action of waking up.
How does it change in a sentence?
When using the past tense to say 'I woke up', the form changes based on the gender of the speaker: a male speaker says obudziłem się and a female speaker says obudziłam się.
How do you pronounce it?
/ɔˈbu.dʑitɕ ɕɛ/. The stress is on the 2 of 3 syllables.
Did you know?
- Polish has a specific term for the feeling of being half-awake and half-asleep, półsen, which literally translates to 'half-sleep'.
- While obudzić się means to wake up, the Polish word for 'alarm clock' is budzik, which is derived directly from the verb for waking.
- In Polish, obudzić się describes the moment of waking up, but to actually get out of bed, you use a completely different verb, wstać.
Examples in context
- Pani Kowalska, proszę obudzić się.Miss/Mrs. Kowalska, please wake up.
- Wstawaj, Lenku!Wake up, Lenny!
- Obudź się, Aniu!Wake up, Annie!
- Wstawaj, Januszku! Musisz się szybko przygotować do szkoły.Wake up, little Janusz! You need to get ready for school quickly.
- Obudź się!Wake up!
Example conversation
Krzysztof and Agnieszka are talking about their morning routine.
- KrzysztofO której godzinie chcesz jutro obudzić się?What time do you want to wake up tomorrow?
- AgnieszkaChcę obudzić się o siódmej.I want to wake up at seven.
- KrzysztofTo bardzo wcześnie dla mnie.That is very early for me.
- AgnieszkaAle mamy dużo pracy do zrobienia.But we have a lot of work to do.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “wake up” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- IPA marked “word by word” joins the Wiktionary pronunciations of each word (obudzić, się) and can differ in connected speech.
