vakna ("to wake up") is the verb you reach for every single morning, and it hides one of the most useful lessons in the whole Icelandic verb system: Icelandic splits "wake up" into two completely different verbs depending on who does the waking. vakna is what you do on your own — you pass from sleep into waking, no one made it happen. To wake someone else, Icelandic uses an entirely separate verb, vekja. English papers over this with one word ("wake"), so the single most important thing on this page is learning to keep the two apart. vakna is otherwise a model weak Class-1 verb (the -aði past), which means it carries the famous u-umlaut — a → ö — in vöknum and the past plural.
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 1 (the -aði preterite). Type: inchoative / change-of-state (intransitive). Auxiliary: vera — ég er vaknaður "I am awake / I've woken up" (a state), though hafa also occurs for the bare event.
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að vakna |
| 3sg present | vaknar |
| 3sg past | vaknaði |
| Supine | vaknað |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | vakna | vaknaði |
| þú | vaknar | vaknaðir |
| hann / hún / það | vaknar | vaknaði |
| við | vöknum | vöknuðum |
| þið | vaknið | vöknuðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | vakna | vöknuðu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | vakni | vaknaði |
| þú | vaknir | vaknaðir |
| hann / hún / það | vakni | vaknaði |
| við | vöknum | vöknuðum |
| þið | vaknið | vöknuðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | vakni | vöknuðu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | vaknaðu! |
| Imperative (þið) | vaknið! |
| Supine | vaknað |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | vaknaður / vöknuð / vaknað |
The big one: vakna (yourself) vs. vekja (someone else)
This is the distinction competitors skip and learners get wrong daily. vakna is intransitive — you wake up, with no object. vekja (an entirely separate verb, past vakti) is transitive and means "to wake somebody up," taking an accusative object. The logic is the inchoative-vs-causative split: vakna describes the change of state happening to you; vekja describes you causing that change in someone else.
Ég vakna alltaf klukkan sjö.
I always wake up at seven o'clock.
Geturðu vakið mig klukkan sex í fyrramálið?
Can you wake me at six tomorrow morning?
Notice the second sentence uses vakið / vakti (vekja), with mig in the accusative, because someone is doing the waking to me. You can never use vakna with an object — there is no "vakna mig."
Change-of-state meaning and vera vaknaður
Because vakna marks a transition, the event ("I woke up at seven") uses the past vaknaði, while the resulting state ("I'm awake now") is expressed with vera + the participle: ég er vaknaður / vöknuð ("I'm up / awake"). This mirrors the difference English draws between "I woke up" and "I'm awake," but Icelandic builds the state-reading straight from the verb's own participle.
Ertu vöknuð? Það er kominn matur.
Are you awake/up? Food's ready. (to a woman)
Krakkarnir vöknuðu eldsnemma á jóladagsmorgun.
The kids woke up super early on Christmas morning.
vakna við — "to be woken by / wake to"
To say what woke you, use vakna við + accusative — literally "wake at/to" a sound or event.
Ég vaknaði við háværan hávaða um miðja nótt.
I woke up to a loud noise in the middle of the night.
Við vöknum oft við fuglasöng á sumrin.
We often wake up to birdsong in the summer.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég vakna börnin klukkan sjö.
Incorrect — vakna can't take an object; to wake others you need vekja
✅ Ég vek börnin klukkan sjö.
I wake the children at seven. (vekja + accusative)
❌ Við vaknum snemma um helgar.
Incorrect — the -um ending forces u-umlaut, so a becomes ö
✅ Við vöknum snemma um helgar.
We wake up early on weekends.
❌ Þau vaknaðu þegar síminn hringdi.
Incorrect — the 3pl past also takes u-umlaut: vöknuðu, not vaknaðu
✅ Þau vöknuðu þegar síminn hringdi.
They woke up when the phone rang.
❌ Mamma vaknaði mig of seint.
Incorrect — to wake someone is vekja; this should be the causative verb with mig in the accusative
✅ Mamma vakti mig of seint.
Mum woke me too late.
Key Takeaways
- vakna / vaknar / vaknaði / vaknað — a model weak Class-1 verb; the past is the regular -aði.
- u-umlaut: a → ö before any -u- ending — við vöknum, past plural v*öknuðum / vöknuðu*, participle *vö*knuð.
- vakna is intransitive ("wake up on your own", no object). To wake someone else, use the separate verb vekja (past vakti) + accusative.
- State vs. event: ég vaknaði "I woke up" (event) vs. ég er vaknaður/vöknuð "I'm awake" (state, with vera).
- vakna við
- accusative = "to wake up to / be woken by" a sound.
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
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- U-Umlaut as a Sound Alternation (a → ö)A2 — When a u appears (or once appeared) in the next syllable, a stem 'a' is rounded to 'ö' — barn → börn, dagur → dögum, kalla → köllum. This is the living u-umlaut (u-hljóðvarp), an automatic, predictable rounding that explains why so many Icelandic paradigms 'change their vowel'.