Never lie in your resume—or to your boss. I’ve never lied in mine. Never. My place of birth and education is in Brazil. My native language is Portuguese. But when I was dragged to a meeting with the head of communications from a Chilean company, I was supposed to speak a different language.

‘We need you in this online meeting. Are you free?’ asked my boss.

‘I’m free but what’s this about?’ I asked back.

‘An acquisition.’

‘I don’t know much about acquisitions.’

‘We just need you to translate some general terms for us.’

‘Are you buying a Brazilian company?’ I asked excitedly. This could mean I would lead this one and get that long-awaited promotion, I thought.

‘No, not Brazilian yet.’

‘But do they speak… ? ’

I wanted to ask if they spoke Portuguese because I don’t speak Spanish. I speak Portunholish, a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish and English. But he gave me no time. He simply opened the meeting room door wide open. I saw a few all-high management people waiting. Maybe I should have been wearing a t-shirt or tote bag with the words ‘Brazil was colonised by Portugal, not Spain’ but it was too late. Sure, my Spanish is better than my German, my Russian or any other language. But no, I don’t speak it fluently.

‘¡Hola! ¿Como estás?’ the not so cheerful lady on the other side of the Pacific Ocean greeted me from a screen.

‘Estoy muy bien. Muy surpresa de estar aqui com usted,’ I replied, smiling.

‘What language is that? Portunhol?’

She said something that sounded like ‘There’s no reason to call me usted, it is so formal. Call me… ’

I knew it was Carla because the name on her meeting ID was Carla.

‘Gracias, soy Mariana. Un momentito, por favor, Carla.’ I turned to my colleagues. ‘Does anyone speak Spanish?’ they all shook their heads. ‘¿Carla, hablas inglés?’

‘Muy poco.’

‘Ok, so let’s start,’ said one of the high management people. ‘Ask her what their main concerns are.’

All the tension being held. A sigh. I wanted to be excused for two minutes, buy some time, but I didn’t remember how to say it in Portuguese let alone in Spanish. My brain seemed to have entered a fight or flight response. I breathed out.

‘¿Qual é tu principal preocupacion o problema que queres saber de nosotros?’

‘Es muy importante saber cuáles son los planes estratégicos para hacer frente a la competencia.’

After a few hums and ohs and okays I posed the question to the room.

‘What are our strategic plans to be at the forefront of our competence?’

‘Does she mean in terms of upskilling our people?’

‘Yes,’ I said confidently.

But no, she wasn’t talking about HR. The fact is that competencia in Spanish is not competência in Portuguese, so it does not translate as competence in English. It’s a false ‘friend word’. They are written the same—minus accent—but have very different meanings as I found out later using Google translate. Competencia in Spanish means competition. So, nothing to do with upskilling our team.

It’s not that hard to see why she figured out my broken Spanish needed a lot of help when I translated strange into extraño. Strange in English means estranho in Portuguese. The sound of estranho is the same as extraño. Pero, extraño means saudade. A word that only exists in Portuguese and means to miss someone.

‘¿És de Brazil?’

‘Sí. Desculpa-me. Mira, no conseguem compreender que no hablo español fluente. Acreditam que hablo por ser Brasileña. No compreendem.’

‘Yo entiendo. No es la primera vez que pasa. Mira, tengo una idea. ¿Qué tal si apunto nuestras consideraciones y tú entonces puedes traducir con calma y retomamos nuestras conversaciones por escrito? Parece más lógico y menos doloroso.’

In a gentle pace, word by word, I could understand everything. 

‘Gracias, muchas, muchas gracias,’ I said.

Y sorrimos. Or, as I’ve just learnt online, y sonreímos.

Strangely enough, we have created a bond for life. My bosses never knew what we spoke about. They were satisfied with the report I sent two weeks later translated by a specialist in business acquisition. My request was promptly answered when I explained who colonised who.

My resume, however, has remained the same: truthful, with no mention of any skills in Spanish.

Born and raised in Niterói, Brazil, Maíra Metelo grew up fascinated by the historically ingrained complexities of social and economic inequalities that plague South America. Her writing tries to show non-stereotypical Latin American characters, exploring the poetic and controversial nature of their lives.

She has long believed in the healing power of stories, and in 2018 founded a boutique children’s publishing house, Saci Books, as a vehicle to give voice to those who are not often heard. Her first novel is being published this year. You can contact her via her instagram account @maira.metelo