Tôi dậy sớm.

Tôi means I, but it is only one of several ways to say I in Vietnamese.

A few useful points:

• tôi is neutral and fairly polite
• it is common in writing, with strangers, or when you want to sound clear and respectful
• in real conversation, Vietnamese often uses relationship-based pronouns instead, such as em, anh, chị, con, or mình

So Tôi dậy sớm is correct, but in many real-life situations a different pronoun might sound more natural depending on who is speaking.

Vietnamese verbs do not change form the way English verbs do.

So dậy stays the same whether you mean:

• wake up
• woke up
• will wake up

Time is usually understood from context or shown with extra words, for example:

• Hôm qua tôi dậy sớm. = I woke up early yesterday.
• Ngày mai tôi sẽ dậy sớm. = I will wake up early tomorrow.
• Sáng nay tôi đã dậy sớm. = I woke up early this morning.

So the basic sentence Tôi dậy sớm is tenseless by itself; context tells you when.

In this sentence, dậy means get up / wake up.

It overlaps a lot with thức dậy:

• dậy = get up, wake up
• thức dậy = wake up

In everyday speech, dậy alone is very common and natural.
Thức dậy is a little fuller and more explicit, and textbooks often teach it early.

So:

• Tôi dậy sớm.
• Tôi thức dậy sớm.

Both are natural. The second one is just a bit more explicit.

In Vietnamese, words like sớm often come after the verb.

So:

• dậy sớm = wake up early

That word order is normal in Vietnamese, even though English puts early after the whole verb phrase too.

For learners, it helps to remember the pattern:

• ăn nhanh = eat quickly
• đến muộn = arrive late
• dậy sớm = wake up early

So Tôi dậy sớm follows a very common Vietnamese structure: subject + verb + time/manner word.

Here, sớm means early.

That is because it describes the time of the action dậy:

• dậy sớm = wake up early

In other contexts, sớm can also be understood more like soon or earlier than expected, but in this sentence the meaning is clearly early.

Sometimes yes, if the subject is already obvious from context.

For example, in casual conversation, someone might simply say:

• Dậy sớm lắm. = Got up very early.
• Hôm nay dậy sớm quá. = Got up really early today.

But for learners, using the full sentence Tôi dậy sớm is safer and clearer.
Leaving out the subject is common in speech, but you need enough context for it to sound natural.

Vietnamese d is not pronounced like the normal English d.

Usually:

• in northern Vietnamese, d sounds like z
• in southern Vietnamese, d often sounds like y

So dậy may begin something like:

• northern: z...
• southern: y...

Also, dậy has the nặng tone, which is short, low, and somewhat stopped or heavy.

So for English speakers, the two main things to remember are:

• the first sound is not an English d
• the tone matters just as much as the letters

They are different words:

• dậy = get up, wake up
• dạy = teach

This is a very common learner mistake because the words look similar.

The difference is in the vowel:

• dậy has â
• dạy has a

So:

• Tôi dậy sớm. = I wake up early.
• Tôi dạy sớm. would mean something like I teach early, which is possible in some context but not the meaning here.

It can do either, depending on context.

Most often, without any time word, it sounds like a general habit:

• Tôi dậy sớm. = I wake up early / I get up early.

But in conversation, it can also refer to a specific day if the situation makes that clear. For example, if someone asks why you are tired, Tôi dậy sớm could mean I got up early today.

If you want to make the time explicit, add a time expression:

• Hôm nay tôi dậy sớm. = I got up early today.
• Thường tôi dậy sớm. = I usually get up early.