Avoiding repetition is one of the assumed translation universals, which professional translators (as good writers) tend to engage in almost automatically. However, sometimes repetition is used deliberately as a stylistic device. This article reports on a small-scale research project which aims at finding out if and how students of translation can be made aware of the function of deliberate repetition in texts. The research material consists of student translations of the same source text from English into Finnish. The translation brief has been formulated in such a way that the ST style ought to be preserved in the translation. Some groups of students have been asked to translate “blind”, while others have been given instructions about style analysis and stylistic devices. A comparison of the students’ translations indicates that students tend to avoid repetition, unless they have been sensitised to its importance as a feature of ST style.