Questions & Answers about Cała twarz mi spuchła po zabiegu.
Why do we use mi instead of moja to say 'my face' here?
This is the dative of inalienable possession. In Polish, when something happens to your body parts, clothing, or closely related things, we use a dative pronoun like mi (to me) to show who is affected, rather than a possessive adjective like moja (my). It literally translates to 'The whole face swelled up on me,' which sounds much more natural to a native speaker than Moja cała twarz.
Could I put mi at the beginning of the sentence?
No. The word mi is a short, unstressed pronoun and cannot start a sentence. It naturally prefers to sit in the second logical position, which is why it tucks in right after the opening noun phrase Cała twarz.
Why does spuchła seem to be missing the -ną- part from its infinitive spuchnąć?
Many Polish verbs ending in -nąć drop that -ną- syllable in the past tense. Since twarz is a feminine noun, we just add the feminine past tense ending -ła to the root, resulting in spuchła rather than the clunkier spuchnęła.
Why does zabieg become zabiegu at the end of the sentence?