The article begins with a brief analysis of what we understand by MT. It goes on to observe that the approach to work to which many translators have become accustomed with translation memories can be perfectly reproduced with an MT system, provided that the system in question has certain characteristics, which are analysed. Lastly, the article mentions two complementary aspects of translation with MT systems, namely the use of controlled language in text production and the relationship between the production of multilingual texts and translation.