Dormir vs Acostarse – Sleep vs Go to Bed

Use dormir to talk about actually sleeping, the act of rest, and how long someone sleeps. Think of it as "to sleep" in English.

Use acostarse to describe going to bed, lying down, or starting your rest routine. It focuses on the time you get into bed, not the sleep itself.

Remember acostarse is reflexive and normally used with a pronoun like me, te, se because it describes an action you do to yourself when preparing to sleep.

Here's useful vocabulary for each stage of the night routine, from getting sleepy to waking up refreshed.

Common expressions show how to talk naturally about sleep times and habits using key phrases with dormir and acostarse.

Use acostarse for the action of going to bed and dormir for the actual sleep; keep the reflexive pronoun with acostarse and learn signal words to describe routines and sleep quality.