Planning a neighborhood potluck means figuring out what everyone wants to eat, what is already covered, and what is still missing. In Portuguese, talking about cravings and missing items uses a sentence structure that might feel a bit "backward" to English speakers.
The Dative-Experiencer Structure
Instead of saying "I desire" or "We lack," Portuguese uses verbs where the literal translation is closer to "It appeals to me" or "It is lacking to us."
In this structure, the person feeling the desire or noticing the lack is the indirect object. You express this using indirect object pronouns (me, te, lhe, nos, vos, lhes). The thing being desired or lacked is the grammatical subject of the sentence, which means the verb conjugates to match it.
Apetecer (To feel like)
Use apetecer to say what you are in the mood for. When followed by a verb in the infinitive (the action you want to do), apetecer always stays in the third-person singular form (apetece). Notice how the pronoun attaches to the end of the verb with a hyphen in affirmative sentences.
Faltar (To be missing)
Use faltar to express that an item is missing or absent. Because the missing item is the subject, the verb must match it in number. If a single thing is missing, use falta; if multiple things are missing, use faltam.
Fazer falta (To need)
While faltar simply states that something is missing, the phrase fazer falta emphasizes that an item is needed or missed. Just like with faltar, the needed item acts as the subject, so the verb fazer changes to match it (faz for singular, fazem for plural).
Negation and Pronoun Placement
As you saw above, affirmative sentences usually place the pronoun after the verb (apetece-me, falta-nos). However, remember that negative words like não act as magnets. If you make any of these sentences negative, the não pulls the pronoun immediately before the verb, and the hyphen disappears.