This contribution highlights the importance of contrastive analysis as part of the training of future translators. Our goal is to show how a linguistic analysis of the source text – not only based on a normative approach but also on the information structure of the text − allows the students to avoid the bias of literal translation. In this study, we focus on the translation into Italian of a range of typical French structures called ajouts prédicatifs (or constructions détachées), which are very frequent in informative texts and most often placed in the first position in the sentence. From the textual point of view, the ajouts prédicatifs are coreferent with the subject of the main sentence and their function is to ensure the thematic coherence of the text. These structures are less frequent in Italian and their position in the sentence can vary, which allows for various translation options. In the first part of the study, we describe the French ajouts prédicatifs and their counterparts in Italian. In the second part, we carry on a qualitative corpus-based analysis of the translations performed by Bachelor students in translation. In the conclusion, we observe how the quality of translation improves significantly when it is accompanied by a metalinguistic and interlinguistic analysis.