PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Translated or foreign-language article

How to Cite a Translated or Foreign-Language Article in APA 7

For a journal article you read in another language, an APA 7 reference gives the title as published, then an English translation of it in square brackets, followed by the journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI as usual. For an article translated into English, add the translator's initials and last name with Trans. after the title, and end with (Original work published Year). The in-text citation is the author and year, (Arrogante, 2014), with both years for a translation: (Vygotsky, 1966/2016).

The format

Author, A. A. (Year). Title in the original language [Title in English]. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxx
Author, A. A. (Year of the translation). Title in English (T. T. Translator, Trans.). Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxx (Original work published Year)

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 22, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Paste the article's DOI into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA fills in the authors, the year, the title as published, the journal, the volume, the issue, the pages, and the DOI. It brings the article in as an ordinary journal article, so switch the kind to Foreign language or translated article and finish it with the steps below.

Then check what the search brought in against the article itself: the authors, the title, the year, and the journal details. The search puts titles in English-style sentence case, which lowercases the nouns in a German title. For a translation, make sure the translators came in as translators, not authors, and that the journal name, volume, issue, and pages are there. A DOI from a university repository can bring in the university's name as the journal and leave the rest blank.

Adding one by hand? Choose Journal, then Journal article, then the kind Foreign language or translated article. PERRLA adds a translator to the contributors for you.

  • Read in the original language: leave the translator blank, type the title as printed in Article Title, and the English title in Translated Article Title. PERRLA adds the square brackets.
  • Read in an English translation: fill in the translator, type the English title in Article Title, and put the year the article first appeared in Original Publication Year. PERRLA adds (Original work published …) and writes both years into your in-text citations, original first.

Typing a German title with its capitals? PERRLA may offer to fix the capitalization. Skip that suggestion, because German capitalizes every noun.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Authors

Write each author's name the way the article prints it: last name, a comma, and initials. Keep accents, umlauts, hyphens, and two-part surnames.

Mayer, P., Hübsch, C., Spirig, R., & Kleinknecht-Dolf, M.

An accented initial keeps its accent too: Óscar Arrogante is Arrogante, Ó.

2. Year

Give the year of the version you read, in parentheses. For a translation, that's the year the translation was published, not the year the original came out.

(2024).

3. Title in the original language

Write the title in its own language, spelled exactly as the article prints it, in sentence case and not italic. Sentence case follows that language's rules for proper nouns: German capitalizes every noun, so those capitals stay.

Erleben von Pflegefachpersonen in Bezug auf durchgeführte und versäumte Pflege: Eine qualitative Studie

If the title is in a script other than the Latin alphabet, like Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, or Russian, romanize it (pinyin for Chinese, for example) before the translation.

4. English title in square brackets

Right after the title, put an English version of it in square brackets, in sentence case, with no italics or quotation marks. The period goes after the bracket.

[Mediator effect of resilience between burnout and health in nursing staff].

Many journals print an English title with the abstract. Use it when there is one, and translate the title yourself when there isn't.

5. Journal name, volume, issue, and pages

Give the journal name exactly as it's published, in its own language, in italics. Don't translate it. The volume is italic, the issue is in parentheses, and the pages take an en dash (–).

Enfermería Clínica, 24(5), 283–289.

6. Translator (translated articles only)

For an article you read in a published translation, the English title stands alone, and the translators follow it in parentheses: initials first, then last name, joined by an ampersand, then a comma and Trans.

Play and its role in the mental development of the child (N. Veresov & M. Barrs, Trans.).

The translator never takes the author's place. The person who wrote the article stays first.

7. DOI and original publication date

End with the DOI as a https://doi.org/ link, or the URL if there's no DOI. For a translation, add the year the work was first published, in parentheses, with no period after it.

https://doi.org/10.26180/4308875.v1 (Original work published 1966)

An article you read in its original language gets no original date, because you read the original.

Examples

An article in Spanish

Óscar Arrogante's study of resilience and burnout in nursing staff, published in Spanish in Enfermería Clínica. The journal's article page prints an English title under the Spanish one, so that's the bracketed translation.

  • Parenthetical citation(Arrogante, 2014, p. 286)
  • Narrative citationArrogante (2014, p. 286)

An article in German, with four authors

A qualitative study of missed nursing care at a hospital in German-speaking Switzerland, published in German in the nursing journal Pflege. The German title keeps its capital nouns, and the bracketed translation is the English title the journal prints with its English abstract. With three or more authors, the in-text citation uses et al.

  • Parenthetical citation(Mayer et al., 2024, p. 209)
  • Narrative citationMayer et al. (2024, p. 209)

An article translated into English

Lev Vygotsky's lecture on play, a key text in early childhood education, in Nikolai Veresov and Myra Barrs's English translation. Vygotsky gave the lecture in 1933, but it was first published, in Russian, in 1966, so 1966 is the original date.

  • Parenthetical citation(Vygotsky, 1966/2016, p. 12)
  • Narrative citationVygotsky (1966/2016, p. 12)

In-text citations

An in-text citation for an article in another language is the same as for any journal article: the author's last name and the year, plus a page when you point to one passage. Nothing in the citation is translated or bracketed.

  • One author: (Arrogante, 2014) or Arrogante (2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Mayer et al., 2024) or Mayer et al. (2024)
  • A translated article: both years, original first, with a slash: (Vygotsky, 1966/2016) or Vygotsky (1966/2016)
  • A specific passage: (Arrogante, 2014, p. 286)

If you translate a passage yourself, APA treats your translation as a paraphrase, so it doesn't go in quotation marks. Give the page anyway, so a reader who knows the language can find the original. Quoting a published translation is different: that's a direct quotation, with quotation marks and a page number from the translation.

Common mistakes

  • Clinical Nursing, 24(5), 283–289.Enfermería Clínica, 24(5), 283–289.Only the article title gets a translation. The journal name stays exactly as it's published, so your reader can find it.
  • Mediación de la resiliencia entre burnout y salud en el personal de Enfermería (Mediator effect of resilience between burnout and health in nursing staff).Mediación de la resiliencia entre burnout y salud en el personal de Enfermería [Mediator effect of resilience between burnout and health in nursing staff].The translation goes in square brackets, not parentheses or quotation marks, and it isn't italic.
  • Erleben von pflegefachpersonen in bezug auf durchgeführte und versäumte pflege: Eine qualitative studieErleben von Pflegefachpersonen in Bezug auf durchgeführte und versäumte Pflege: Eine qualitative StudieSentence case keeps the capitals a language requires. German capitalizes every noun, so English-style lowercasing makes the title wrong.
  • Mayer, P., Hubsch, C., Spirig, R., & Kleinknecht-Dolf, M.Mayer, P., Hübsch, C., Spirig, R., & Kleinknecht-Dolf, M.Keep every accent and umlaut in names and titles, exactly as the article prints them.
  • Veresov, N., & Barrs, M. (2016). Play and its role in the mental development of the child.Vygotsky, L. S. (2016). Play and its role in the mental development of the child (N. Veresov & M. Barrs, Trans.).The author keeps the author position. Translators go in parentheses after the title, with Trans.
  • (Vygotsky, 2016)(Vygotsky, 1966/2016)A translated article with a known original date takes both years in the text, the original first.

Quick checklist

  • Names and titles with every accent and umlaut
  • Title in its own language, with that language's capitals
  • English title in square brackets, not italic
  • Journal name as published, never translated
  • For a translation: translators with Trans. after the title
  • For a translation: (Original work published Year) at the end, and both years in the text

Questions students ask

Do I translate the title of a foreign-language article in APA 7?

Yes. Write the title as published, then an English version of it in square brackets. If the journal prints an English title, use that one; if not, translate it yourself. Leave the journal name in its original language.

Can I quote a passage I translated myself?

APA treats your own translation as a paraphrase, not a quotation, so leave off the quotation marks. Still give the author, the year, and the page, so readers can find the original passage.

The journal published the article in English and another language. Which do I cite?

Cite the version you read. If you read the English version, it's an ordinary journal article reference with no bracketed translation. If you read the other language, use the original title with the English title in brackets.

What if the title is in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or another non-Latin script?

Romanize the title, meaning write it in the Latin alphabet using a standard system such as pinyin for Chinese, and then add the English translation in square brackets. Author names are romanized too.

What if the translator isn't named?

Leave the translator out and keep everything else, including the original publication date. It happens: the first English translation of Vygotsky's play lecture, in Soviet Psychology in 1967, carried no translator's name.

Which year goes first in the citation for a translated article?

The original year, then a slash, then the year of the translation you read: (Vygotsky, 1966/2016). In the reference list, the translation's year goes after the author, and the original year goes at the very end.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.10, 8.11, 8.15, 8.17, 9.8, 9.19, 9.25, 9.34, 9.38, 9.39, and 10.1, and the APA Style website's reference elements page and its blog post on citing your own translations. Example sources verified on October 21 and 22, 2026: Arrogante against PubMed, Crossref, and the article's page on the journal's Elsevier site; Mayer et al. against PubMed (including the English title on its English abstract) and Crossref; Vygotsky against the article PDF (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 3–25, with the 1966 first publication on its first page) and its record in Monash University's Bridges repository, which publishes International Research in Early Childhood Education.

PERRLA puts the English title in square brackets, credits the translator, and writes both years into every citation.

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