Do you think English is easy???

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car . At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP ..

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP ...

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so......... it is time for me to shut UP .!

Oh . . . one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning the last thing you do at night?
U-P!

Great answers!
I love English. It's my second language, but I love my third language even more, Esperanto!

Excuse me for the mistakes (or errors?). English is difficult for 92% of the world population. The not natives scientists must be rewrited by natives...

All the ethnic languages are diffucult: phonetic, morphology, syntax, vocabulary. The easiest language is esperanto who is for me the equity language for communication in this century .
Read Esperanto on Wikipedia or Lernu.net

Pardonu min por la eraroj. Engla lingvo estas malfacila por 92% de la tutmonda loghantaro. La ne engla parolantoj sciencistoj devas esti reskribataj per engla ligvo parolantoj.

Chiuj etnikaj lingvoj estas malfachilaj: fonetiko, morfologio, sintakso, vortaro. La pli facila lingvo estas esperanto kiu por mi estas la justa lingvo por la komunikado en nia jarcento
Esperanto: j=y(en); c= ts (en); gh=j(en)

Considering my native language is Portuguese, a language with infinite rules and exceptions to its rules, I did not have a hard time learning English. In six months I was able to understand English perfectly, and within a year I could have a fluent conversation with a native speaker. Maybe I learned English faster than the average foreigner due to the fact that I have always wanted to learn it. I think it's beautuful, and not to say, the most useful language in the planet.

You kind of have to get a "feel" for the word, rather than remembering a bunch of definitions. I'm a native speaker, and I never had to memorize rules for "up". You just know them.
A general trend you may have noticed in your above examples is that the word "up" often follows a verb, and is meant for emphasis, or like "really". It can also denote "completeness".
When we "wake up", we literally get up, from bed, so here we use "up" in the traditional sense. When a topic "comes up", it's like it's coming up out of your head or mouth.
When you "speak up", it's the volume that is going "up" in a literal sense.
Hope this gives you a better "feel" for the word.