Learn Romanian: M-am trezit devreme și m-am spălat. - I woke up early and I washed myself.

It is a combination of the reflexive pronoun mă (myself) and the helping verb am (I have). Because mă ends in a vowel and am starts with one, they link together into m-am to make pronunciation faster and easier.

Why do we use the reflexive m-am for waking up? In English we just say I woke up.

In Romanian, the dictionary form of the verb for waking up is a se trezi, which literally means to wake oneself. If you just say am trezit without the reflexive pronoun, it means you woke someone else up.

Do the past action words trezit and spălat change if a woman is speaking?

No. In this past tense structure, the past participles trezit and spălat stay exactly the same regardless of your gender. Only the pronoun and the helping verb change for different people, like te-ai trezit for you woke up.

How would I change this sentence to talk about someone else, like a friend who woke up early?

You would replace m-am with the matching reflexive combination for that person. For he or she, you use s-a, which is se plus a. The sentence becomes: S-a trezit devreme și s-a spălat.