After a brief discussion of the problems of translation on the one hand and its interest for the comparison of languages on the other, the structure of narrative texts as well as the expression and function of the linguistic categories of tense, aspect, and aktionsart (aspectual character of verbs) in the four languages involved will be dealt with. Grammatical and lexical aspect (as well as tense) are essential for shifting between foreground and background, i.e. between the forward moving skeleton of the narrative and more descriptive sections containing secondary information surrounding the foreground. It will be shown that the translators of Jorge Amado´s novel Gabriela, cravo e canela make use of a whole scale of linguistic resources in the target languages French, English, and German for rendering the functions of the Portuguese aspectual distinction perfective/imperfective in some foregrounded and backgrounded passages chosen from one chapter of this novel. Still, the translations are neither fully equivalent to the original nor to each other.
