In university textbooks, examples can be observed to be used for three functions: a phatic function intended to establish a positive relationship between author and readership, a referential function providing the readers with some new explanation added to an argument or hypothesis, and an appellative function which consists in illustrating a principle or point by reminding the audience of some facts or incidents in order to facilitate understanding. This means that examples work best if they refer to some object or phenomenon with which the readers are familiar. The present paper draws on the author's experience in translating Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie, by Katharina Reiß and Hans J. Vermeer, into English. The case is particularly interesting because the main ideas of the book, including certain examples, have been spread in the English-speaking world through second- or third-hand information. Moreover, the target audience the translation is addressing includes not only native speakers of English but also readers from all parts of the world who may only share two features: they do not know German and they are interested in translation theory. Therefore, a mere reproduction of the German examples will definitely not suffice to achieve the desired functions. After analysing the corpus of examples with regard to their form, their intended functions and the knowledge field they refer to, the paper will describe and justify the translation strategies the translator decided to use in order to take these aspects into account.