"Me he despertado"

[FrannyCakes]

Hi,

How does "Me he despertado" mean "I woke up"?

What does "he" mean?
Is "despertado" a reflexive verb?

Thanks.

[pjt33]

The infinitive, which is what's usually treated as the base form of a verb, is despertarse, and it is indeed a reflexive verb.

"He" comes from the auxiliary verb "haber" which forms the perfect tense. It's "I have" in the sense of "I have done something". ("I have" in the sense of possession is "tengo").

"Me he despertado" is thus roughly "I have woken up" - although the use of the perfect vs the simple past tense isn't the same in Spanish and English (and also varies between dialects of Spanish; I'm not sure whether it varies between dialects of English).

[bobjenkins]

Me (verbo reflexivo despertarse) he (haber - conjugó en la primera persona) despertado (Participio pasado del verbo despertarse)

[chanman]

The two posts before me have basically covered it

Despertado - woken up (reflexive): Despertar + se (to wake up)

in spanish, -ado and -ido are equivalent to English's "-ed", but only as an adjective, or after a form of "haber"

Me - first person object pronoun

he - first person form of "haber", meaning "to have (done something)"