This study investigates the development of two components of translational competence, i.e. discursive and pragmatic competence, by analyzing the way the fictitious dialogue between sender and receiver in advertising texts is translated. Three translation students (1st, 3rd and 4th year of study) and one professional translator were asked to translate an advertisement while thinking aloud. The results show a correlation between the degree of awareness of the role played by the fictitious dialogue, discursive and pragmatic competence, and experience of translation. The study has implications for teaching and research: it reveals the potential benefit of combining translation exercises and analyses of corpora in teaching on the one hand, and of a systematic variation of variables in research on the other.