Translation and intercultural studies can benefit from the use of comparable and parallel corpora (Maia 1997, Zanettin 1998, López Rodríguez 2000). The analysis of the keywords and collocations found in English and Spanish corpora of news reports may shed light not only on linguistic patterns and regularities but also on the way proper names, forms of address and references to professions are used in original and translated texts. By elaborating their own corpus and recognising how these expressions shift from the source to the target text, students of translation become aware of cultural differences and develop translation skills to bridge the knowledge gap between the readership of the ST and the TT. Students also become familiar with the practice of style guides conventions.