In this paper, the author presents a ‘performance model’ of translation for the main purpose of raising awareness of the complexity of translation in trainees (and hopefully, ‘purely intuitive’ translators as well). He intends to rescue the word ‘priority’ and aims to ‘update’ it by trying to benefit from the insights of functional models, norm theory and descriptive Translation Studies. From this revival of the term ‘priority’, within a didactic/evaluative paradigm, the author then provides a personal account of subjectivity, scope, ambition and difficulty, proposing them as evaluative criteria, which is the other primary aim of the paper. The author deals with equivalence as a (variable) characteristic of priorities, although the author is aware that this is not the only possible account of equivalence, even within this paradigm.