Learn Hardcore Esperanto: Kiam mi vekiĝas, mi ankoraŭ kuŝas en la lito kaj rigardas la spegulon sur la muro. - When I wake up, I still lie in bed and look at the mirror on the wall.

In the sentence, you are waking up yourself, so you use vekiĝi. In the present tense it becomes mi vekiĝas (I wake up / I am waking up), not mi vekas, which would mean “I wake (someone)”.

What does the -iĝ- part in vekiĝas actually mean?

The suffix -iĝ- in Esperanto usually means “to become / to get / to turn into” and often turns a transitive idea into an intransitive “change of state”.

veki (to wake someone) → vekiĝi (to become woken → to wake up)
fermi (to close something) → fermiĝi (to get closed)

So vekiĝas is literally “becomes woken”, which is why it’s used for “wakes up”.

Why is ankoraŭ placed before kuŝas? Can it go somewhere else?

The most common position for ankoraŭ (“still / yet”) is directly before the word it modifies, often the verb: mi ankoraŭ kuŝas.
You can also say mi kuŝas ankoraŭ, which is understandable, but the version in the sentence sounds more neutral and typical.

Ankoraŭ here means “still”: you are still lying in bed at the time when you wake up.

What is the difference between kuŝas and dormas or estas en la lito?

kuŝi = to lie, to be lying (horizontally), regardless of whether you are asleep.
dormi = to sleep.
esti en la lito = to be in bed (no information about posture or sleep by itself).

So mi kuŝas en la lito focuses on your physical position (lying down in bed). You could be awake or asleep; the sentence then clarifies that at the moment you wake up, you are still in that lying position.

Why is it en la lito and not just en lito or sur la lito?

en = in / inside. En la lito corresponds to idiomatic English “in bed” (literally “in the bed”).
sur = on / on top of. Sur la lito would mean “on the bed” (on top of it), which suggests a different position.

You can grammatically say en lito (“in a bed”), but in practice people usually say en la lito here, because it refers to your usual, known bed. Esperanto uses la more often than English uses “the” in this sort of expression.

Why does spegulon have -n, but lito and muro do not?

The -n ending marks the direct object (accusative case) in Esperanto.

rigardas la spegulon – “look at the mirror”: spegulon is the thing being looked at, so it’s the direct object and takes -n.

Lito and muro are not direct objects; they are objects of prepositions:

en la lito – in the bed
sur la muro – on the wall

Nouns governed by prepositions don’t normally take -n unless you are marking direction (movement toward), which is not the case here.

Why is it rigardas la spegulon and not something like rigardas al la spegulo or vidas la spegulon?

rigardi = to look at something deliberately; it normally takes a direct object without a preposition: rigardi la spegulon.
vidi = to see something (often more passive or automatic).

So mi rigardas la spegulon = “I look at the mirror”.
You might see rigardi en la spegulon (“look into the mirror”), which emphasizes the inside/reflection, but rigardi la spegulon is already perfectly correct and usual. Using al (rigardi al la spegulo) is not standard here.

Why don’t muro and lito take -n as in sur la muron or en la liton?

Adding -n after a preposition generally shows movement towards a place:

Mi iras en la liton. – I go into the bed.
Mi pendigas la bildon sur la muron. – I hang the picture onto the wall.

In your sentence there is no movement; you are already lying there, and the mirror is already on the wall:

kuŝas en la lito – lying in the bed (static location)
spegulo sur la muro – a mirror on the wall (static location)

Static location → no -n.

Can I omit the second mi and say: “… kiam mi vekiĝas, ankoraŭ kuŝas en la lito kaj rigardas la spegulon …”?

This is understandable, but standard style in Esperanto is to repeat the subject, especially when clauses get a bit long:

Kiam mi vekiĝas, mi ankoraŭ kuŝas en la lito kaj mi rigardas la spegulon sur la muron.

You can safely drop the second mi after kaj if the subject is clearly the same:

… mi ankoraŭ kuŝas en la lito kaj rigardas la spegulon … – this is common and natural.

But omitting both later mi’s (after the comma and after kaj) starts to feel elliptical and less clear.

Does Kiam mi vekiĝas talk about a general habit, the present moment, or the future?

With the present tense -as, Kiam mi vekiĝas, mi ankoraŭ kuŝas… usually expresses a general habit or repeated situation: “Whenever I wake up, I’m still lying in bed…”. It can also be used as “narrative present” when telling a story.

For a clearly future situation relative to now, Esperanto normally switches to -os:

Kiam mi vekiĝos, mi ankoraŭ kuŝos en la lito. – When I wake up (later), I will still be lying in bed.

So the original sentence is best read as timeless/habitual or descriptive, not future.

Could I use dum instead of kiam, e.g. Dum mi vekiĝas?

Not here.

kiam introduces a point or time frame: “when”.
dum means “during / while” and emphasizes simultaneity over a span of time.

Waking up is treated more as an event or clear moment (kiam mi vekiĝas), not a long, stretched-out process. Dum mi vekiĝas, mi kuŝas en la lito would sound odd or overly literal, as if waking up were a prolonged activity you do while lying there.

How do you pronounce vekiĝas and ankoraŭ, especially ĝ and ŭ?

vekiĝas is syllabified ve-KI-ĝas (stress on ki).
- ĝ is like English j in “jam” or “judge”.
ankoraŭ is an-KO-raŭ (stress on ko).
- ŭ is a semivowel like English w. In the diphthong aŭ, it sounds like “ow” in “cow”.

So roughly: ve-KI-jas, an-KO-raw (with that “ow” sound at the end).