In this paper the author tries to define how essential the analysis of textual typology should be for a correct planning of teaching translation, in order to achieve a very important goal: textual competence. If we presume that a professional translator is asked to prove his/her "translation competence", which is not only a pure linguistic skill but also a wide cultural competence, the first step one can take in that direction is through a careful analysis of the main aspects of each text type. Different linguistic and sociolinguistic problems between the language used, combined with the peculiar features of a particular text, show that generalization is not possible in defining teaching objectives and methods. Anyway, teaching and working practice provide a wide range of error examples, primarily caused by a lack of careful study of the existing textual models. The author mentions some of these errors, which refer to translations of interviews, or social, historical-artistic, artistic, financial-economic and literary texts.