Telma Madeira will be competing in the Miss Earth 2018 pageant from Portugal. It seems like the beauty queen has decided to fly solo and not use an interpreter at the final event, as she has started her preparation for the competition, with English classes, to improve her hold on the language.

She shared on her Instagram, her commencement of the course, and captioned it: ‘On the way to Miss Earth 2018. First day of classes at Manitoba Language School, to improve my English communication. Road to Miss Earth 2018.’

In recent times, the problems relating to translators not being able to decode and capture the essence of a beauty queen’s answer have increased. Sometimes, the translators, mince words, changing the meaning of the answer. It also happens that, replacing a word like capability with feeling, would change the meaning of the whole answer, like in the case of Miss Columbia at Miss Universe 2015.

Another recent example of this mix up by translators is the horrible translation of Miss Universe 2016, Iris Mittenaere’s answer at the Miss Universe pageant. Her brother later came up with the accurate translation of her answer, and also noted that the error in translation was because the interpreter given to Irene, to translate French, didn’t even speak French.

It is safe to assume, that such mix ups and their effect on a beauty queen’s career have pushed beauty queens and their respective countries to avoid translators, and take English lessons instead.

However, this as well, has proven quite a disaster for some beauty queens. There were instances in which translators were provided to candidates, but they still opted to answer the question in English. A Venezuelan Irene Esser, in 2012, tried to answer a question in English after it was translated in Spanish. Sadly, she got lost. She was asked if she could create one law, what it would be. Her answer was deemed gibberish and the crown didn’t go to her.

Whether Telma Madeira would opt for a translator or not, remains a question.