This paper aims to examine whether and how parallel corpora can be used to inform specialized translation courses. Comparable corpora have already found their niche in translator training and the author argues that parallel corpora can be used as a complement to comparable corpora, because there will be times when comparable corpora do not suffice. A small parallel collection of popular science articles translated from French into English is used to illustrate this point, and the author looks at how translation students might use resources of this type to help them in translation.