Despertarse Conjugation 101: Conjugate Despertarse In Spanish

Despertarse has a reflexive conjugation in Spanish. Although they’re extremely common, reflexive verbs can be challenging if you’re not familiar with them. So, use this despertarse conjugation guide as a way to practice -AR reflexive verbs.

• Despertarse Overview 
• Indicative Tenses of Despertarse Conjugations
  • Present tense
  • Preterite tense
  • Imperfect tense
  • Near Future tense
  • Future tense
  • Conditional tense
  • Present Perfect tense
  • Past Perfect tense
  • Future Perfect tense
  • Conditional Perfect tense
  • Progressive tenses
• Subjunctive Tenses of Despertarse Conjugations 
  • Present Subjunctive tense
  • Present Perfect Subjunctive tense
  • Imperfect Subjunctive tense
  • Past Perfect Subjunctive tense
• Imperative (Commands) of Despertarse Conjugations
  • Affirmative Commands
  • Negative Commands
• Uses & Examples
• Download Despertarse Conjugation Tables & Uses Cheat sheets
• Despertarse Conjugation Practice Quiz

Overview of Despertarse

Despertarse is only reflexive when communicating that someone wakes themself up. Keep the same conjugations and remove the reflexive pronouns when saying the subject wakes someone else up.

Indicative Conjugations of Despertarse

Present tense

Despertarse present tense conjugations have an E to IE stem change for all subjects except ‘nosotros’ and ‘vosotros’. Use the present tense of ‘despertar’ to talk about someone’s current habits of waking up. For instance: Yo me despierto temprano.

Preterite tense

Despertarse preterite conjugations are regular. Conjugate despertarse to the preterite tense to communicate that someone already woke up or was awake at a specific moment in the past. ¿Sabes si ya se despertó tu hermano?

Imperfect tense

In the past indicative imperfect tense, despertarse is a regular verb. Use this tense to talk about the time you used to wake up. For example: Yo siempre me despertaba tarde.

Near future

The Spanish immediate future of ‘despertarse’ communicates that someone is planning to wake up soon in the future. For example: Sandy se va a despertar a las 9. The near future is formed with ir (present tense) + a + despertarse and can be translated as “going to wake up”.

Take Note: You can attach the reflexive pronoun to the infinitive (despertar) or place it before the conjugated verb (ir). Regardless of which option you choose, you still need to use the corresponding reflexive pronoun for each subject.

Future simple tense

The future conjugations of despertarse are regular. In the future, you can use ‘despertarse’ to explain that someone will wake up at some point in the future. Mañana no nos despertaremos temprano.

Conditional tense

Use the conditional forms of ‘despertarse’ to express that a person would wake up if certain circumstances are met. This tense also allows you to make a hypothesis about someone waking up. ¿Por qué no se despertaría tu hermana?

Present perfect tense

Reflexive pronoun + haber in the present tense + despertado (past participle) is the formula of the Spanish present perfect tense. This tense is used to express that someone has or hasn’t woken up. For instance: ¿Por qué no se han despertado?

Take Note: With perfect tenses, Spanish reflexive pronouns must always be placed before haber.

Past perfect

The past perfect conjugations of ‘despertarse’ express that someone had or hadn’t woken up before some other reference point in the past. Eran las 8 y Juan no se había despertado. To form the past perfect, use the imperfect form of ‘haber’ and the past participle form of ‘despertarse’.

Future perfect

The future perfect conjugations of despertarse convey that someone will have or won’t have woken up by or before a certain time in the future. These forms are also used to express that something might have woken up. For instance: A las 9, mi mamá ya se habrá despertado.

Conditional perfect

The conditional perfect conjugations of despertarse are used to say that someone would have woken up as long as a past condition had been met. For instance: Me habría despertado temprano de haber tenido algo importante que hacer.

Progressive tenses

Use the progressive tenses of despertarse to express someone is waking up at the moment of speaking. Or, in the case of past forms, to communicate that a past action was in progress when you woke up. For example: Cuando llegaste, apenas me estaba despertando.

Take Note: Reflexive pronouns can be attached to present participle verbs or can also be placed before the conjugated verb, which in this case would be estar.

Despertarse Subjunctive Conjugations

In Spanish, the subjunctive is used to talk about wishes, hypothetical situations or express uncertainty. The conjugation charts below show the subjunctive forms of despertarse.

Present subjunctive

Despertarse subjunctive conjugations have an E to IE stem change except for ‘nosotros’ and ‘vosotros’. The present subjunctive form of ‘despertarse’ can be used to wish or request someone to wake up. For instance: Espero que mañana se despierten temprano.

Present perfect subjunctive

Reflexive pronoun + haber (in the present subjunctive) + despertado is the formula to build the present perfect subjunctive of ‘despertarse’. When using this tense, ‘despertarse’ can be used to express doubt or ask if someone has woken up. Dudo que Jared ya se haya despertado.

Imperfect subjunctive

Use the imperfect subjunctive conjugations of ‘despertarse’ to refer to past suggestions, requests, wishes or expectations you had about someone waking up. Te pedí que te despertaras temprano. 

The imperfect subjunctive has two conjugation models depending on which type of Spanish you’re using:

Latin American Spanish version

Note: The table above doesn’t include despertarse’s conjugation for vosotros because it’s not used in Latin American Spanish.

Castilian Spanish version

Past perfect subjunctive

In the past perfect subjunctive, despertarse conveys that someone would have woken up if a past circumstance was met. You can also use these conjugations to express regrets or hypothetical results if someone had woken up. 

For example: Si se hubieran despertado, habríamos llegado a tiempo.

Despertarse Imperative Conjugations

To give commands in Spanish, we use the imperative mood. Put it another way, it’s used to tell people what to do (affirmative imperative) and what not to do (negative imperative). 

Affirmative commands

The affirmative imperative of ‘despertarse’ is used to command or instruct someone to wake up. For example: ¡Juan, despiértate! In the affirmative imperative, despertarse has E to IE changes except for ‘vosotros’.

Take Note: Reflexive and object pronouns must always be attached to affirmative commands.

Negative commands

Use the negative imperative to order someone to not wake up. For example: No se despierten temprano. Notice that ‘vosotros’ is the only pronoun that doesn’t have an E to IE stem change. 

Take Note: With the negative imperative, reflexive pronouns must always be placed before the verb.

Meanings of Despertarse & Examples

Since you already learned how to conjugate despertarse, you should check the following examples so you know how to use this verb correctly.

In Spanish, we use the reflexive conjugations of despertarse to express that a person wakes up on their own. To keep this meaning, you must use reflexive pronouns: 

Despiértense, por favor. 
Wake up guys, please. 

Todavía no me voy a despertar. 
I’m not going to wake up just yet. 

Siempre nos hemos despertado muy temprano. 
We have always woken up very early. 

You can use the non-reflexive form, despertar to express that someone is waking another person up. In this case, you must remove the reflexive pronoun from the conjugation: 

Tim, despierta a tu hermana. 
Tim, wake your sister up. 

¿Quién despertó al bebé?
Who woke the baby up?

Take Note: With this meaning, you can use a Spanish direct object pronoun to replace the person that you or someone else wakes up –yo la desperté (I woke her up).

Download Despertarse Conjugation Tables & Uses Cheat sheets

Click the button below to download the cheat sheets PDF I’ve assembled with all of the despertarse conjugation charts, meanings, and uses so you can study them at your own pace.

Download Conjugations PDF

Practice Quiz: Despertarse Conjugation

Now that you’ve learned how to conjugate despertarse in Spanish, you can practice your skills conjugating a reflexive, stem-changing verb with the despertarse conjugation practice quiz.