Goethe, although known as a writer and poet, was also interested in the questions of translation and took the translation very seriously. Goethe had many discourses on translation at different times and in different contexts: sometimes he conveyed them to his readers in the form of educational verses, sometimes in the form of aph-orisms, sometimes in the form of informative reviews; moreover, he expressed these discourses sometimes as a translator, sometimes as a target reader, sometimes as a poet. In this study, based on Goethe's various discourses and identities, his con-ception of translation and what he aimed to achieve through translations will be analyzed. In doing so, the translation debates initiated by Goethe's close friends Heinrich von Diez and Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall should not be ignored, since it can be said that they had an important role in the formation and interpretation of Goethe's discourses. The study will also explain with examples how Goethe's (translated) writings deal with foreign and alien phenomena, what he aims at and how he conveys them to the target reader, thus Goethe's approach to foreign litera-ture and language studies will be included. In this way, Goethe's understanding and aims of translation will be evaluated in detail. In the light of all these determina-tions, Goethe's three known types of translation, namely prose translation, parodis-tic translation and the “Third Epoch Translation”, which he did not name, will be discussed in order to analyze what exactly Goethe wanted to convey to us.