The verbs for sleeping and waking are an ideal small system to learn as a set, because they show off two pieces of Turkish machinery at once: the intransitive/causative alternation and the -(y)Akal- aspectual compound. The two base verbs, uyumak "to sleep" and uyanmak "to wake up," are both intransitive — they describe what the sleeper does, with no object. To talk about doing something to a sleeper — putting them to sleep, waking them up — Turkish adds a causative suffix and gets uyutmak "to put to sleep" and uyandırmak "to wake (someone) up." Get this quartet straight and you have a clean model of how Turkish builds "make someone do X" verbs across the whole language. For the full mechanics see the causative voice page; here we anchor it in four verbs you will use every day.
uyumak — to sleep (and a spelling trap)
uyumak is intransitive: you sleep, full stop, no object. Its stem is uyu-, which creates the language's most famous spelling trap. Many learners write uya- by analogy with uyanmak, but the sleep verb is uyu- with a u. So "I'm sleeping" is uyuyorum (not uyayorum), and "sleep!" is uyu!
Çok yorgunum, erken uyuyacağım.
I'm really tired — I'll go to sleep early.
Bebek nihayet uyudu.
The baby has finally fallen asleep.
Dün gece hiç uyuyamadım.
I couldn't sleep at all last night.
The aorist is uyurum / uyur "I sleep / he sleeps (habitually)" — ben geç yatar, geç uyurum "I go to bed late and sleep late." Note that uyumak covers both "to sleep" (the state) and "to fall asleep / go to sleep" depending on the tense: the perfective uyudu usually means "fell asleep," while the continuous uyuyor means "is sleeping." Where you need a location, the locative answers "where you sleep" — kanepede uyumak "to sleep on the sofa" — drawing on the basic cases summarised on the cases overview page.
uyanmak — to wake up (intransitive)
uyanmak "to wake up" is also intransitive — it is what the sleeper does on their own, with no object: you wake up. The -(I)n- in uya-n-mak is historically a reflexive/medial marker, which is exactly why the verb is intransitive ("come to oneself awake"). The aorist is uyanırım / uyanır.
Her sabah saat yedide uyanırım.
I wake up at seven every morning.
Gürültüden uyandım.
I woke up because of the noise.
The related adjective uyanık means "awake" — and, idiomatically, "sharp / canny / wide-awake (clever)." So uyanık ol can mean either "stay awake" or "keep your wits about you," depending on context. Pair it with the state verb: uyanık mısın? "are you awake?"
The causatives: uyutmak and uyandırmak
Here is the heart of the page. To act on a sleeper, you causativise. Each intransitive base gets a causative suffix and gains an object — the person you affect, which goes in the accusative.
| Intransitive (what the sleeper does) | Causative (what you do to them) |
|---|---|
| uyumak — to sleep | uyutmak — to put to sleep / get (someone) to sleep |
| uyanmak — to wake up | uyandırmak — to wake (someone) up |
uyutmak (causative of uyu- with -t-) means "to make sleep / put to sleep / lull": you do something so that someone sleeps. uyandırmak (causative of uyan- with -DIr-) means "to wake someone up": you do something so that someone wakes. In both, the formerly-subject sleeper becomes the accusative object.
Bebeği zar zor uyuttum, lütfen sessiz ol.
I just barely got the baby to sleep — please be quiet.
Beni yarın yedide uyandırır mısın?
Could you wake me up at seven tomorrow?
Çocukları uyandırmadan evden çıktık.
We left the house without waking the children.
The pattern is general across Turkish: an intransitive verb (X happens) plus a causative suffix gives a transitive verb (make X happen / make someone do X), and the new participant lands in the accusative. uyu- → uyut-, uyan- → uyandır-, just like pişmek "to cook (intr.)" → pişirmek "to cook (tr.)." Note that uyutmak is the causative of uyumak, not of uyanmak — so "to wake someone" is uyandırmak, never uyutmak. The two are opposites, and mixing them is a meaning error, not just a grammar one.
uyuyakalmak — to fall asleep without meaning to
A favourite Turkish construction sits right here: uyuyakalmak "to fall asleep (unintentionally), to doze off, to nod off." It is built from uyu- plus the linking vowel -(y)A- plus kalmak "to remain" — literally "to remain having-fallen-asleep." This -(y)Akal- compound (covered among the auxiliary and aspect verbs) attaches kalmak to a main verb to mean the action happened suddenly and unintentionally, and you were stuck in that state. It is exactly the nuance of English "I fell asleep without meaning to."
Kanepede ders çalışırken uyuyakalmışım.
Apparently I dozed off on the sofa while studying.
Otobüste uyuyakaldım, durağımı kaçırdım.
I fell asleep on the bus and missed my stop.
The -mIş in uyuyakalmışım is no accident: because the action was unintentional, you often did not register it happening, so the inferential/evidential -mIş ("apparently, it turns out") is the natural pairing. uyuyakaldım (definite past) is also fine when you simply report it as fact.
Aorist and a quick recap of forms
| Verb | Aorist (3sg) | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| uyumak | uyur | sleeps |
| uyanmak | uyanır | wakes up |
| uyutmak | uyutur | puts to sleep |
| uyandırmak | uyandırır | wakes (someone) up |
Bebek genelde gece boyu uyur ama bazen uyanır.
The baby usually sleeps through the night but sometimes wakes up.
Common mistakes
❌ Çok yorgunum, erken uyayacağım.
Incorrect — the sleep stem is uyu-, not uya-: uyuyacağım.
✅ Çok yorgunum, erken uyuyacağım.
I'm really tired — I'll go to sleep early.
❌ Beni yarın yedide uyut.
Wrong verb — to wake someone is uyandır, not uyut (which means put to sleep).
✅ Beni yarın yedide uyandır.
Wake me up at seven tomorrow.
❌ Bebek uyandım, ağlıyor.
Incorrect — uyanmak is intransitive; you didn't wake the baby, the baby woke: bebek uyandı.
✅ Bebek uyandı, ağlıyor.
The baby woke up — it's crying.
❌ Annem beni uyandı.
Incorrect — to wake someone needs the causative uyandırdı, with the person in the accusative.
✅ Annem beni uyandırdı.
My mum woke me up.
❌ Otobüste uyudukaldım.
Incorrect — the compound uses the linking -(y)A-: uyuyakaldım.
✅ Otobüste uyuyakaldım.
I fell asleep on the bus.
Key takeaways
- uyumak "sleep" (stem uyu-) and uyanmak "wake up" (stem uya-n-) are both intransitive — no object. Watch the vowel: uyu- (sleep) vs uya- (wake).
- To act on a sleeper, causativise: uyutmak "put to sleep" (from uyu-) and uyandırmak "wake someone" (from uyan-). The person affected becomes the accusative object.
- "Wake someone up" is uyandırmak, never uyutmak — they are opposites.
- uyuyakalmak "to doze off / fall asleep unintentionally" is the classic -(y)Akal- compound, often paired with inferential -mIş (uyuyakalmışım).
- Aorists are regular: uyur, uyanır, uyutur, uyandırır. The adjective uyanık means both "awake" and "sharp / canny."
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Causative -DIr / -t / -IrB1 — How Turkish builds 'make/have someone do' with the causative suffix, which allomorph each verb takes, and how the suffix adds a new causer and demotes the old subject.
- Aspectual Helpers: -(y)Iver, -(y)Adur, -(y)Agel, -(y)AkalC1 — The fused converb-plus-auxiliary verbs that add nuances of suddenness, continuation, habitual persistence and frozen states to a Turkish verb.
- How to Use the Verb ReferenceA2 — How to read the Turkish verb-reference pages — stem, key forms, governed case, and the irregular-feeling details they highlight.
- The Six Cases: OverviewA1 — A map of the Turkish case system — six harmonising suffixes that do the work English splits between prepositions and word order, all in one fixed slot after plural and possessive.