The notion of “problem” has always been central to Translation Studies. Less conspicuous, however, is the way the seemingly one word “problem”, and its counterpart “solution”, have come to denote at least three different things, serving, in fact, three different kinds of expert discourse on translation. PROBLEM(1) is located in discussions of source-language texts and is prospective in nature: the basic issue here is one of initially possible SOLUTIONS(1) (which may or may not materialize in any individual translation practice). PROBLEMS(2), by contrast, manifest themselves only when a text existing in another culture, and taken to be a translation, is mapped onto its assumed source text. Reasoning here is retrospective and the primary issue is one of factual replacement (which may or may not have been included among the options considered as potential SOLUTIONS(1)). Finally, PROBLEM(3) is again factual, but not fully retrospective. Manifesting itself gradually during the reconstruction of the act of translation, as both interim, temporary SOLUTIONS(3) and reflections on PROBLEM(3), SOLUTION(3) (interim or final) or TRANSLATION ACT(3) as such, it thus reflects the time and effort invested in the process of translation and the level of consciousness involved therein.