Falta um acento nesta palavra, e a vírgula também está no lugar errado.

This word is missing an accent mark, and the comma is in the wrong place too.

Breakdown of Falta um acento nesta palavra, e a vírgula também está no lugar errado.

• estar: to be
• e: and
• nesta: in this
• o lugar: the place

Questions & Answers about Falta um acento nesta palavra, e a vírgula também está no lugar errado.

How does faltar work in this sentence?

In Portuguese, faltar often means to be missing rather than to lack in the English structure.

So Falta um acento nesta palavra literally works like:

• An accent mark is missing in this word

The important idea is that the thing missing becomes the grammatical subject in Portuguese.

• Falta um acento. = One accent mark is missing.
• Faltam dois acentos. = Two accent marks are missing.

This is a very common pattern in Portuguese.

Why is it falta and not faltam?

Because the subject is um acento, which is singular.

Portuguese verbs agree with the subject:

• Falta um acento. = singular
• Faltam dois acentos. = plural

Even though English might focus on there is/there are, Portuguese is really matching the verb to the missing thing.

What does acento mean here? Is it the same as an English accent?

Here, acento means an accent mark or diacritic in writing, not a spoken accent.

So in this sentence, um acento means something like:

• á, ê, ç-type written marks

Portuguese acento can also mean accent in the sense of pronunciation or regional speech, but the context makes it clear that this sentence is talking about spelling and punctuation.