Although the reactivity of think-aloud protocols (TAP) has been pointed out, that is the act of how thinking aloud potentially affects the task itself, TAP has been employed in most studies of the translation process. The present study empirically addresses the effects of TAP during translation tasks on 1) translation quality, 2) text comprehension, 3) time consumed and 4) participants' perception. Participants were 22 university students exposed to the translation tasks with three types of materials: poetic, narrative and expository text. Results indicate that reactivity does not play a significant role in the task of translation, regardless of the participants' perception. Though the validity of TAP has been proven, the quality and quantity of the verbal reports gathered with the TAP method will need to be examined henceforth.