This paper discusses the possible ways in which methods which may appear as mutually exclusive can contribute to a better understanding of texts, particularly scientific and technical texts. The possible applications, assets and liabilities which each method may have is examined, with a view to showing the fruitful contributions that each method can offer the students when dealing with this sort of texts. The paper also dwells on the main resources that the methods discussed, mainly based either upon translation, on the one hand, or upon a textual-rhetoric approach, on the other hand, may bring to them. In this paper, the author approaches these two methods as tools, which may be equally useful depending on a variety of factors. Among those, the author refers to the following: the context in which they are used, the purposes for which they are used and the aims pursued in the particular teaching context or situation where they can be employed.