Learn French: On se lève tôt le dimanche. - We get up early on Sundays.

Even though on is used to mean 'we' in conversational French, grammatically it acts exactly like il (he) or elle (she). Because it is a third-person singular subject, it has to use the third-person reflexive pronoun se. If you used nous as the subject, it would be nous nous levons.

Why is it se lève instead of just on lève?

The base verb lever means 'to raise' or 'to lift'. If you drop the se, it means you are lifting something else (like a box, or your hand). By adding the reflexive pronoun to make it se lever, you are literally saying 'we lift ourselves,' which is how you express getting out of bed in French.

Where does the accent in lève come from?

The dictionary form of the verb is se lever, which has no accent. However, for pronunciation reasons, the first e changes to è when conjugated for je, tu, il/elle/on, and ils/elles. This changes the vowel sound from a soft 'uh' to an open 'eh'.

Why does it say le dimanche? Does that mean 'the Sunday'?