Despite the literary prestige that Jorge Amado enjoys, the French translation of one of his most famous novels, Capitães de Areia/Capitaines des sables, shows in various aspects, some obscurities as to the dimension of the novel and the resources of the target language. This article discusses some of the infidelities which lie at the lexical level of the translation; the aim is to present and analyse the treatment given in French to five Portuguese lexical units having to do with the current speech.