The use of corpora to verify how words are used in context can be particularly useful in areas of languages for special purposes (LSPs) and terminology. The very possibility of examining terms in texts that deal with the subject matter under discussion makes it easier for the terminologist - and also the translator - to understand the concepts behind the terms used. The chapter focuses on efforts made to find and use text corpora in English and Portuguese to further terminology work in various areas, the problems that arise and how they can, or cannot, be solved. Collecting parallel corpora means acquiring both original texts and their translations in electronic form. Comparable corpora are 'collections of individual monolingual corpora' which use 'the same or similar sampling procedures and categories for each language but contain completely different texts'.