This article contains the unabridged text of the talk given on September 28, 2002 at the UNIBERO Mozart auditorium during the event held to celebrate 'Translators’ Day' and the release of the 11th issue of Tradução e Comunicação. The article features repercussions of current professional translator training programs (or lack thereof) on translators’ proficiency in the Portuguese language, the need for translators to master the various registers of their language if they are to be good professionals, recent trends in Portuguese language teaching, and translators’ insertion in the socio-political reality by means of the use they make of their language.