After a short outlook on the particularities of translation training at the University of Geneva, the advantages and disadvantages of bi-or plurilinguals in translation training in Switzerland are being examined. New didactic methods which take into account particularly the formative evaluation and the implementation of its newly developed instruments, as well as the importance of metalanguage for translators, represent the core of this paper. The paper tries to highlight the importance of a market-oriented, academic training for translators in order to enable them to fulfill their task as mediators between cultures.