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How to Cite a Source in Another Language

Cite the edition you actually opened. Keep the title in the language you read, add an English translation in square brackets when readers need one, and transliterate anything that is not in the Latin alphabet. That is the shared rule in APA 7 §9.38, the MLA Style Center and MLA Handbook, 9th edition, and The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition, §13.101. This page is for a source you read in the original. If you read a published English translation, the translator, the original year, and the dual-date rules live in how to cite a reprinted or translated work.

By 24 min read

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How to Cite a Source in Another Language: Quick Answer

All three styles cite the work you used, in the language you used it in. The author, title, publisher, and journal name stay as printed (transliterated if the script is not Latin). The connecting words of the citation ("Translated by," "trans.," "vol.," "no.," month names) stay in the language of your paper, which for this guide is English. APA 7 requires an English translation of the title in square brackets after the original. MLA 9 makes that bracketed translation optional. Chicago 18 adds one when readers are unlikely to understand the original. The in-text citation does not change just because the source is in French, Spanish, or Japanese.

Templates for a book you read in another language (patterns, not sources)

APA 7 reference:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title in the original language [English translation of the title]. Publisher.

APA 7 in-text:

(Author, Year) or (Author, Year, p. 12)

MLA 9 works cited:

Author Last, Author First. Title in the original language [Optional English Translation]. Publisher, Year.

MLA 9 in-text:

(Author 12)

Chicago 18 note:

1. Author First Last, Title in the original language [English translation of the title] (Publisher, Year), 12.

Chicago 18 bibliography:

Author Last, Author First. Title in the original language [English translation of the title]. Publisher, Year.

Chicago 18 author-date:

Author Last, Author First. Year. Title in the original language [English translation of the title]. Publisher. — cited as (Author Year, 12)

Four decisions before you format

  1. Which edition did you read? The original-language edition is cited with this guide. A published English translation is a different source: credit the translator and, in APA, give both years. That pattern is the reprinted and translated works guide.
  2. Is the title in the Latin alphabet? French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Turkish titles are copied as printed, accents included. Russian, Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Hindi titles are transliterated in APA. MLA and Chicago also let you keep the original script when your readers can use it.
  3. Will your readers understand the title? APA always wants the bracketed translation. MLA and Chicago want it when the audience needs it, which for a general English-language paper is almost always.
  4. Are you quoting? Quoted words in another language raise a separate question: quote the original, use a published translation, or translate it yourself. The quoting section below uses official APA, MLA, and Chicago wording for each choice.

Do not mix the two editions

If the title on your desk is English, you are not on this page anymore. Use the translated-work form so the translator and the original year land in the right slots.

Cite a reprinted or translated work →

Capitalizing a title in another language

The most common error is applying English headline capitalization to a French or Spanish title. Every style capitalizes a non-English title by that language's own conventions: first word, first word of a subtitle, and words the language itself capitalizes. German nouns stay capitalized. The bracketed English translation follows the style's normal English rule: sentence case in APA and Chicago, title case in MLA. The MLA Style Center states the contrast in one paragraph:

MLA Style Center on non-English title capitalization

In MLA style, titles of English-language works are capitalized headline-style, and titles of works in languages other than English are capitalized sentence-style.
For example, in German all nouns are capitalized, but not all nouns are capitalized in French, so this difference is reflected in which words are capitalized in German and French titles.

Chicago 18 says the same thing in §11.8 and §13.100: use sentence-style capitalization for titles in languages other than English, then keep the extra capitals the language requires. APA's sentence case already produces that result for books and articles; periodical names stay in title case even when they are Spanish or French.

Official titles, capitalized the way each style asks. No invented monographs.
ElementAPA 7MLA 9Chicago 18
French book titleLa psychologie de l'enfantLa psychologie de l'enfantLa psychologie de l'enfant
Bracketed translation of that title[The psychology of the child][The Psychology of the Child][The psychology of the child]
Spanish article titleLa anosmia neurosensorial: Relación entre subtipo, tiempo de reconocimiento y edad"La anosmia neurosensorial: Relación entre subtipo, tiempo de reconocimiento y edad""La anosmia neurosensorial: Relación entre subtipo, tiempo de reconocimiento y edad"
Spanish journal nameClínica y Salud (title case, as APA styles every periodical)Clínica y salud if you apply Spanish sentence style; many journals print significant words capped — copy the mastheadClínica y salud (sentence-style) unless the journal's own masthead is the form you are documenting

Keep every accent, umlaut, and cedilla. If your word processor strips them, paste the title from the source or use the special-characters tool rather than dropping them.

APA 7: original title, required bracketed translation

APA 7 §9.38 is the title rule: give the title as it appears, in sentence case and italic where a title would normally be italic, then add an English translation in square brackets that is not italic. Translate only the work you are citing — the article, chapter, or book — not the journal name or the edited-book title that contains it. If the script is not Latin, transliterate into the Roman alphabet first. The elements of reference list entries page restates the bracket rule; the Publication Manual applies it in the book and journal examples of chapter 10. The in-text citation is the ordinary author-date form. Our APA book guide covers the parts that do not change.

APA 7, book in another language (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §10.2)

Reference:

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1966). La psychologie de l'enfant [The psychology of the child]. Quadrige.

Parenthetical:

(Piaget & Inhelder, 1966)

Narrative:

Piaget and Inhelder (1966)

Journal article in another language

The article title gets the bracketed translation. The journal name does not; it stays in its own language, italic, in title case. Add the DOI when there is one. The official Spanish-language sample on the APA journal article examples page is Chaves-Morillo et al. (2018):

APA 7, journal article in another language (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §10.1)

Reference:

Chaves-Morillo, V., Gómez-Calero, C., Fernández-Muñoz, J. J., Toledano-Muñoz, A., Fernández-Huete, J., Martínez-Monge, N., Palacios-Ceña, D., & Peñacoba-Puente, C. (2018). La anosmia neurosensorial: Relación entre subtipo, tiempo de reconocimiento y edad [Sensorineural anosmia: Relationship between subtype, recognition time, and age]. Clínica y Salud, 28(3), 155–161. https://doi.org/10.5093/clysa2018a25

Parenthetical:

(Chaves-Morillo et al., 2018)

Narrative:

Chaves-Morillo et al. (2018)

The APA Style blog post on citing your own translations (21 November 2022) uses a second official French article when the writer of the paper is the translator of a passage. The reference still names the French title and adds the English gloss:

APA Style blog, 21 November 2022: French article you translated a passage from

Schröder, C. M., Broquère, M. A., Claustrat, B., Delorme, R., Franco, P., Lecendreux, M., & Tordjman, S. (2022). Approches thérapeutiques des troubles du sommeil et des rythmes chez l’enfant avec TSA [Therapeutic approaches for sleep and rhythms disorders in children with ASD]. L'Encéphale: Revue de psychiatrie clinique biologique et thérapeutique, 48(3), 294–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.encep.2021.08.005

Chapter in an edited book

Translate the chapter title. Leave the edited-book title in the original language. APA's classroom reprint of this pattern is Carcavilla Gonzáles (2015):

APA 7, chapter in a Spanish edited book (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §10.3)

Carcavilla Gonzáles, N. (2015). Terapia sensorial auditiva: Activación cerebral por medio de la música [Auditory sensory therapy: Brain activation through music]. In J. J. García Meilán (Ed.), Guía práctica de terapias estimulativas en el Alzhéimer (pp. 67-86). Editorial Síntesis. https://www.sintesis.com/guias-profesionales-203/guia-practica-de-terapias-estimulativas-en-el-alzheimer-libro-1943.html

Parenthetical:

(Carcavilla Gonzáles, 2015)

Non-Latin scripts: transliterate, then translate

For a title in Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or another non-Latin script, APA transliterates the title and the author's and publisher's names into the Latin alphabet, then adds the bracketed English translation. The manual's examples are romanized only. If transliteration is genuinely impossible, APA allows the original script plus the bracketed translation; do not replace a usable romanization with script. Use one recognized system consistently: Hepburn for Japanese, Pinyin for Chinese, Revised Romanization for Korean, and the Library of Congress tables for Russian and Arabic. The Publication Manual's Japanese book sample is Amano and Kondo (2000):

APA 7, Japanese book read in the original (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §10.2)

Reference:

Amano, N., & Kondo, H. (2000). Nihongo no goi tokusei [Lexical characteristics of Japanese language] (Vol. 7). Sansei-do.

Parenthetical:

(Amano & Kondo, 2000)

Narrative:

Amano and Kondo (2000)

MLA 9: original title, optional translation

MLA cites the source in its own language, capitalized by that language's rules, and lets you add an English translation of the title in square brackets when readers need one. The MLA Handbook §5.30 is the title-translation rule: for titles in non-Latin characters, a transliteration may follow the original script, then the translation, separated by a semicolon. Transliterations or translations of book titles are italicized; titles in non-Latin characters stay roman. The publisher stays as printed; "UP" is used only for English-language university presses. The in-text citation is unchanged: author and page. The works-cited quick guide and our MLA book guide cover the container pattern.

MLA Style Center, 31 December 2025: your own title translation needs no "my trans."

Finally, if you provide your own translation of a title instead of giving the title of a published translation (for example, because no published translation exists), there is no need to indicate that you have done so.
José Aricó’s La cola del diablo: Itinerario de Gramsci en América Latina (The Devil’s Tail: Gramsci’s Itinerary in Latin America) offers an overview of this tradition.

Non-Latin scripts: original, then transliteration, then translation

The MLA Style Center note on nonroman characters (8 February 2017; still the live Style Center page, with a pointer to the 9th edition) prefers original script plus a translation, and adds a transliteration when readers will search in the Latin alphabet. In the works-cited list the order is original characters, then transliteration if you include one, then translation. Person and publisher names are transliterated, not left in the original script:

MLA Style Center: Tolstoy in the original Russian

Tolstoy, Leo. Крейцерова соната [Kreĭt͡serova sonata; Kreutzer Sonata]. Tolstoy, Лев Толстой [Lev Tolstoĭ], vol. 27, pp. 5-78.
Tolstoy, Leo. Дневники 1895, 1896 г [Dnevniki 1895, 1896 g.; Diaries for the years 1895, 1986]. Tolstoy, Лев Толстой [Lev Tolstoĭ], vol. 53, p. 4.

The same page is explicit about names and publishers: "Note that we provide not the original script but only a transliteration for the name of a person or publisher." A second official sample, on foreign institution names, keeps a French publisher in French and a Russian publisher in transliteration:

MLA Style Center: do not translate the publisher

Dieulafoy, Jane. Papiers et correspondance de Marcel et Jane Dieulafoy. Manuscripts de la Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris.
Šklovskij, Viktor. Жизнь художника Федотова [The Life of the Artist Fedotov]. Izdatelʹstvo detskoy literatury, 1936.

Bilingual title pages

If the title page itself prints the work in two languages, do not invent a bracketed gloss. The MLA Style Center interpolates a slash, with a space on each side when either title contains a space:

MLA Style Center: title page already bilingual

Leopardi, Giacomo. "Storia del genere umano / History of the Human Race." Operette morali / Essays and Dialogues, translated and introduced by Giovanni Cecchetti, U of California P, 1982, pp. 22-55.

Family-first names

Names that are written family name first in the original (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hungarian) stay in that order without an inverting comma when you cite the original-language edition. If you are citing an English edition that prints the name Western-style, invert it as usual with a comma. Be consistent for every source in that language.

Chicago 18: bracketed translation, sentence-style capitals

Chicago 18 §13.101 is the citation rule for a title translation you supply: the English follows the original in square brackets, without italics or quotation marks, and is capitalized sentence-style. The original itself takes sentence-style capitalization too, in italics for a book and in quotation marks for an article. CMOS 18 still omits the city of publication (§14.30). Translator credits use trans. in notes and Translated by in the bibliography — but only when you read a published translation. The Notes and Bibliography guide and our Chicago book guide show the surrounding forms. The CMOS Q&A quotes the §13.101 book gloss in one line:

CMOS 18 §13.101, as quoted in the CMOS Q&A

Koniec sojuszu trzech cesarzy [The end of the Three Emperors’ League]
Chicago style writes the translation in plain text, no italics or quotes, and in sentence case rather than title case.

The same Q&A shows what changes when a published English title exists. The English is then a published title, so it is italic and title case, connected with "Translated by … as":

CMOS Q&A: French edition plus its published English title

Furet, François. Le passé d’une illusion. Éditions Robert Laffont, 1995. Translated by Deborah Furet as The Passing of an Illusion (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

If you read only the French edition, stop after the original title and add the unpublished gloss in brackets. CMOS 18 drops the city:

Chicago 18 notes-bibliography, French monograph you actually read

First note:

1. François Furet, Le passé d’une illusion [The passing of an illusion] (Éditions Robert Laffont, 1995), 42.

Shortened note:

2. Furet, Passé d’une illusion, 57.

Bibliography:

Furet, François. Le passé d’une illusion [The passing of an illusion]. Éditions Robert Laffont, 1995.

Journal article

For an article the bracketed translation follows the closing quotation mark of the title, and the comma or period that would normally sit inside the quotation marks moves to after the bracket. CMOS 13.101's own journal sample is W. Kern's 1938 Dutch article:

CMOS 18 §13.101, Dutch journal article

Note:

2. W. Kern, "Waar verzamelde Pigafetta zijn Maleise woorden?" [Where did Pigafetta collect his Malaysian words?], Tijdschrift voor Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde 78 (1938): 272.

Bibliography:

Kern, W. "Waar verzamelde Pigafetta zijn Maleise woorden?" [Where did Pigafetta collect his Malaysian words?]. Tijdschrift voor Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde 78 (1938): 271-73.

Mentioning a foreign title in the text

CMOS 11.11 is the running-text rule, not the bibliography rule. An unpublished translation goes in parentheses, roman, sentence case. A published English title keeps the italics or quotation marks of a real title and uses title case:

CMOS 18 §11.11, in-text title translations

Leonardo Fioravanti’s Compendio de i secreti rationali (Compendium of rational secrets) became a bestseller.
Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) was the subject of her dissertation.

Non-Latin scripts and family-first names

Chicago romanizes by default and allows the original script after the romanized title when readers will use it. Personal names keep the order of the original language. The live Notes and Bibliography guide uses Liu Xinwu for that Eastern-order rule (§13.75): the name is not inverted in the bibliography, and a shortened note says "Liu," not "Xinwu." That sample is a published English translation — use it for the name, then switch to the translated-work guide for the translator line:

CMOS 18 Quick Guide: Eastern name order (translated book, for the name only)

Note:

1. Liu Xinwu, The Wedding Party, trans. Jeremy Tiang (Amazon Crossing, 2021).

Shortened note:

2. Liu, Wedding Party, 279.

Bibliography:

Liu Xinwu. The Wedding Party. Translated by Jeremy Tiang. Amazon Crossing, 2021.

The CMOS Q&A on Chinese sources is the original-language counterpart: put your own English translation in square brackets immediately after the Pinyin title, sentence case, roman type. If you are citing both the Chinese book and a published English translation, cite the one you quoted first and connect the other with "Translated as …" or "Originally published as …"

Author-date

Chicago 18 author-date, the French edition you read

Reference list:

Furet, François. 1995. Le passé d’une illusion [The passing of an illusion]. Éditions Robert Laffont.

In-text:

(Furet 1995, 42)

If you read a translation instead

The moment the title on your copy is English, the entry changes shape: the title is the English one, the translator is credited, and APA adds the original year at the end of the reference and in every in-text citation. MLA writes Translated by before the publisher; Chicago writes trans. in notes and Translated by in the bibliography. The APA blog on translated works and our reprinted and translated works guide cover the variants. The official APA pair sits here only so the two forms can be compared:

Same Piaget book, read in English (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §10.2)

APA 7 reference:

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child (H. Weaver, Trans.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1966)

APA 7 in-text:

(Piaget & Inhelder, 1966/1969)

Quick comparison

What each style does with a source you read in another language.
ElementAPA 7MLA 9Chicago 18
Original titleKept, sentence caseKept, capitalized by the language's rulesKept, sentence-style
English translation of the titleRequired, square brackets, roman, sentence caseOptional, square brackets; title case for an English glossWhen needed, square brackets, roman, sentence-style (§13.101)
Non-Latin scriptTransliterate, then translateOriginal script, then transliteration, then translationTransliterate; original script may follow
Family-first namesSurname, then initials: Amano, N.As in the original, no comma, when that is how the source prints itAs in the original, no comma: Liu Xinwu (§13.75)
Journal nameOriginal language, title case; do not translateOriginal language; do not translate the publisher eitherOriginal language, sentence-style; do not translate the publisher (§14.35)
Translator of an edition you read(H. Weaver, Trans.) after the title, plus (Original work published 1966)Translated by Helen Weaver, before the publishertrans. Jeremy Tiang in notes; Translated by Jeremy Tiang in the bibliography
In-text citation(Piaget & Inhelder, 1966, p. 12)(Mistral 17) or (Mistral 17; my trans.)Note with page; (Furet 1995, 42) in author-date

Quoting: the original, a published translation, or your own

Quoting from a source in another language forces one more decision. If the wording itself matters, quote the original and supply a translation so every reader can follow. If only the content matters, translate and cite. If a published English translation exists, prefer it: quote that edition and cite it as a translated work, because a published translation is a checkable source and your own is not. When you do translate yourself, the styles disagree on the punctuation.

APA 7

Your own translation is a paraphrase, not a quotation: no quotation marks, and a citation with the author, year, and (recommended) page. The APA Style blog is explicit that you do not write "my translation" in the citation. Quote the original only if the original words are essential, and then the translation is no longer the thing inside the quotation marks.

MLA 9

MLA Handbook §6.75 and the Style Center note of 31 December 2025 require a translation of quoted passages unless the paper is for a specialized audience. Quote the original, then give your translation in parentheses in quotation marks, followed by the page and my trans. You may omit my trans. for a word or two that presents no serious problem of translation.

Chicago 18

CMOS 11.14–11.16: quote the original and follow it with the translation in parentheses or square brackets, or give the translation alone. Credit yourself with my translation or translation mine in the note, or put a blanket sentence in the preface ("Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own"). Prefer a published translation when one exists.

APA Style blog, 21 November 2022: your translation is a paraphrase

If you translate a passage from one language into another language on your own in your paper, your translation is considered a paraphrase, not a direct quotation.
Because your translation of the material is a paraphrase, do not use quotation marks around the material you translated.

Original French (Schröder et al., 2022, p. 301):

"Ainsi, les problèmes de sommeil retentissent sur le fonctionnement diurne des patients en perturbant leurs capacités d’apprentissage et de régulation émotionnelle" (Schröder et al., 2022, p. 301).

Official paraphrased translation:

Schröder et al. (2022) noted that sleep problems affect autistic patients’ daytime functioning by disrupting their learning and emotional regulation abilities (p. 301).

MLA Style Center, 31 December 2025: original plus my trans.

MLA style requires that writers provide translations of quoted passages, terms, and titles in languages other than English (or other than the language in which the essay is written), unless the paper is intended for a specialized audience.
The speaker’s ghostly body falls to earth in the opening lines of the book: "Baje por espacio y aires / y más aires, descendiendo / sin llamado y sin llamada" ("I fell through space and air / and more air, falling / without calling and uncalled"; Mistral 17; my trans.).

Work cited:

Mistral, Gabriela. Poema de Chile. La Pollera Ediciones, 2015.

Short phrase; my trans. omitted:

Neruda addresses the pre-Columbian Indigenous laborer as "hermano" ("brother"; 30).

Work cited:

Neruda, Pablo. Canto general. Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1981.

Chicago 18 §§11.15–11.16: credit the translation

Authors providing their own translations should so state, in parentheses following the translation, in a note, or in the prefatory material—for example, "my translation" or "Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own."

Author-date template (not a source):

(Author Year, 42; my translation)

Note template (not a source):

6. Author, Short title, 42 (my translation).

Names in non-Latin scripts

Romanize names with the same system you used for the title, and spell each author the same way in every citation and in the text. Do not translate a name, and do not reorder it to look Western unless the edition you are citing already printed it that way. APA reduces given names to initials, so the family name is the only part a reader sees in the reference. MLA and Chicago keep the full name and the original order when that is how the source presents it. A single author who publishes under different romanizations is cited as spelled on the work you used.

Official names only, as they appear in the style-center samples on this page.
Source of the nameAPA 7MLA 9Chicago 18
Piaget and Inhelder (French book)Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B.Piaget, Jean, and Bärbel InhelderPiaget, Jean, and Bärbel Inhelder
Amano and Kondo (APA Japanese book)Amano, N., & Kondo, H.Use the order printed on the source; do not invent a Western inversionUse the order printed on the source; do not invent a Western comma
Šklovskij (MLA Style Center)Transliterate; do not leave the name in CyrillicŠklovskij, ViktorPick one romanization and keep it for every citation
Liu Xinwu (CMOS Quick Guide)Liu, X. only if you are citing that work in APALiu Xinwu when the source prints family-firstLiu Xinwu (not inverted; shortened note: Liu)

Common mistakes

  • Translating the title and dropping the original. The reader must be able to find the book under the title it was published with.
  • Italicizing or quoting the unpublished bracketed translation. In all three styles that gloss is plain roman text in square brackets.
  • Capitalizing La Psychologie de l'Enfant headline-style. French, Spanish, and Italian titles capitalize the first word and proper nouns only.
  • Lowercasing German nouns to force sentence case. The MLA Style Center's reminder is the rule: German nouns stay capitalized.
  • Translating the publisher or the journal name. Quadrige, Sansei-do, Éditions Robert Laffont, and Clínica y Salud stay as printed.
  • Inverting a Japanese or Chinese name that the original prints family-first, or adding a comma to it in MLA or Chicago.
  • Mixing romanization systems, so the same author is Wade–Giles in one entry and Pinyin in the next.
  • Putting your own translation inside quotation marks in APA. APA treats it as a paraphrase.
  • Forgetting my trans. in MLA or my translation in Chicago when the English words are yours.
  • Citing a foreign-language original when you actually read the English edition. Cite the translation and credit the translator; see the reprinted and translated works guide.

Before you submit

  • The title is in the language I read, with its accents, capitalized by that language's rules.
  • The bracketed English translation is present where my style requires or recommends it, in roman type.
  • Any non-Latin script is romanized consistently, with the original script added only if my readers need it.
  • Author names keep their original order and spelling in every citation.
  • Publisher and journal names are untranslated; connecting words (trans., vol., no., months) are in English.
  • Every quotation in another language has a translation, and my own translations are marked the way my style marks them.
  • If I read an English translation, I have switched to the translated-work form instead.

Frequently asked questions

Do I translate the title of a foreign-language source?
Keep the original title and add an English translation in square brackets after it. APA 7 §9.38 requires the bracketed translation. MLA 9 treats it as optional and does not make you write my trans. on a title gloss. Chicago 18 §13.101 adds it when readers are unlikely to understand the original, in roman sentence case. Never replace the original title with the translation.
How do I cite a source written in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or Arabic?
APA transliterates the title and names into the Latin alphabet, then adds the bracketed English translation — Amano and Kondo (2000) is the official Japanese book. MLA prefers original script, then a transliteration, then the translation, as in the Style Center's Tolstoy and Šklovskij entries; person and publisher names stay transliterated. Chicago romanizes by default and puts your English gloss in brackets after the Pinyin or other romanized title.
How is a foreign title capitalized?
By the rules of its own language, not by English headline style. The MLA Style Center: English titles are headline-style; titles in other languages are sentence-style, except that German nouns stay capitalized. APA sentence case and Chicago sentence-style (§11.8, §13.100) produce the same result for books and articles. Periodical names in APA stay in title case.
What is the difference between citing the original and citing a translation?
Cite whichever edition you read. An original-language edition follows this guide: original title plus a bracketed translation, as in Piaget and Inhelder (1966), La psychologie de l'enfant. A published English translation is cited as a translated work — APA: (H. Weaver, Trans.) plus (Original work published 1966) and the dual-date in-text form (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966/1969). That whole pattern is the reprinted and translated works guide.
How do I quote a passage that I translated myself?
APA 7 treats your translation as a paraphrase: no quotation marks; cite author, year, and page. The official Schröder et al. (2022) sleep-problems sentence is the worked case. MLA 9 quotes the original and gives your translation in parentheses with the page and my trans., as in the Style Center's Mistral lines from Poema de Chile. Chicago 18 gives the translation in parentheses or brackets and adds my translation to the note or the author-date parenthetical (CMOS 11.16).
Does the in-text citation change for a non-English source?
No. APA still cites author and year, MLA author and page, and Chicago a note or author-date parenthetical. The only visible difference is the author's name, which is transliterated if necessary and, in MLA and Chicago, kept in its original order. MLA adds my trans. only when the English words in the sentence are yours.
Should I translate the publisher or the journal name?
No. Publisher and journal names are proper names and stay as printed: Quadrige, Sansei-do, Éditions Robert Laffont, Clínica y Salud, Izdatelʹstvo detskoy literatury. The MLA Style Center's Dieulafoy and Šklovskij entries are the model. Only the connecting parts of the citation are in English, such as Translated by, trans., vol., no., and month names.
Can I cite a translation I found online instead of the original?
Cite what you read. If you relied on an unofficial web translation, cite that page as the source rather than pretending to have read the original. If you read the original and used a published translation only to check your own reading, cite the original and translate as this page describes. A published translation you actually quoted is cited as a translated work.
Do I need an access date for a foreign-language webpage?
Only when your style already wants one. APA 7 uses a retrieval date for unarchived, undated pages. MLA 9 adds an access date when no publication date is available, which is common on older institutional sites. Chicago 18 §14.104 uses an access date when there is no publication or revision date, or cites a Wayback copy instead. The language of the page does not change that rule.

Format the original-language entry

Enter the title as printed, with its accents, and add the bracketed translation in the title field. The generator keeps the original and formats the rest for APA, MLA, or Chicago. If you read an English edition, use the translated-book generator so the translator and original year land in the right places.

Book citation generator →Translated book citation generator →Special characters tool →