This paper tackles the issue of using corpora in translator training, focussing more specifically on the question of awareness raising. The paper presents a discussion on the role of corpora in translation, their applicability in professional development, and their importance in leading to a better understanding of how language is constituted. Two example analyses are offered and detailed, so that they are applicable to contexts in which computational resources are scarce. The analyses center around the linguistic choices in a translated newspaper text and in the Brazilian version of a slogan from an American advertising campaign. It is suggested that these activities may be carried out with translation students, in such a way that they enable students, while they explore electronic corpora, to become aware of both the complexity and the specificity of the linguistic choices involved in the process of translation.