First, the easy way: PERRLA
In PERRLA, choose Book, then Book, e-book, or audiobook, then the kind Foreign language or translated book. PERRLA adds a translator to the contributors for you. Fill in the author, the translator, the year and publisher of your copy, and the year the book first came out in Original Publication Year.
Read it in English? Type the English title, as your copy prints it, in Original Book Title, and leave Translated Book Title empty. PERRLA adds (Original work published …) to the reference and writes both years into every in-text citation, original first.
Read it in its original language? Type the title as printed in Original Book Title and its English translation in Translated Book Title. Leave the translator and Original Publication Year blank. PERRLA puts the English title in square brackets.
Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.
The parts of the reference
1. Author
The person who wrote the book goes first, not the translator: last name, comma, initials.
Frankl, V. E.
2. Year of the translation
Give the year of the translated edition you read, from its copyright page, in parentheses.
(2006).
3. Title
Write the title of the version you read, in that language, in italics and sentence case. If you read the English translation, the title is the English one.
Man's search for meaning
4. Translator
Right after the title, in parentheses and not italic, give the translator's initials and last name, then a comma and Trans. The initials go before the last name here, the opposite of the author position.
(I. Lasch, Trans.).
Two translators are joined with an ampersand before the last one, followed by a single Trans. If the same person edited and translated the book, write Ed. & Trans. after the name. If the book also has a separate editor or an edition number, they share the same parentheses, separated by a semicolon.
5. Publisher
Give the publisher of the translation you read, followed by a period.
Beacon Press.
6. Original publication date
End with the year the book was first published in its original language, in parentheses after Original work published, with no period after it.
(Original work published 1946)
Use the original-language year, not the year the first English translation appeared. Foucault's book came out in French in 1963 and in English in 1973, so the original year is 1963.
7. A book in another language
If you read the book in its original language, there's no translator and no original date. Write the title as printed, then your English translation of it in square brackets, not italic. If the publisher gives an official English title, use it. If not, translate the title yourself, so your reader knows what the book is about.
Naissance de la clinique: Une archéologie du regard médical [The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception].
Examples
A book translated into English
Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, first published in German in 1946. The Beacon Press edition credits Ilse Lasch with translating Part One.
References
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)
- Parenthetical citation(Frankl, 1946/2006)
- Narrative citationFrankl (1946/2006)
When the first English translation came later
Michel Foucault's The Birth of the Clinic. It was published in French in 1963, translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith for Pantheon in 1973, and reissued by Vintage Books in 1994. The date is the Vintage year, and the original year is the French one.
References
Foucault, M. (1994). The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1963)
- Parenthetical citation(Foucault, 1963/1994, p. xii)
- Narrative citationFoucault (1963/1994, p. xii)
A book you read in its original language
The same Foucault book in the original French edition from Presses universitaires de France. There's no translator, so the English title goes in square brackets and there's only one year.
References
Foucault, M. (1963). Naissance de la clinique: Une archéologie du regard médical [The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception]. Presses universitaires de France.
- Parenthetical citation(Foucault, 1963, p. 12)
- Narrative citationFoucault (1963, p. 12)
In-text citations
A translated book's in-text citation carries two years: the year it was first published in the original language, a slash, and the year of the translation you read. The earlier year comes first. The translator never appears in the in-text citation.
- Parenthetical: (Frankl, 1946/2006)
- Narrative: Frankl (1946/2006) argued that meaning can be found even in suffering.
- A quote: add the page from your translation: (Foucault, 1963/1994, p. xii)
- A book in another language: one year, because there's no translation: (Foucault, 1963, p. 12)
If you translate a passage yourself from a book in another language, APA treats it as a paraphrase, so quotation marks aren't required. Giving the page still helps your reader find it.
Common mistakes
- Lasch, I. (Trans.). (2006). Man's search for meaning.Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.).The author keeps the author position. The translator goes in parentheses after the title.
- Man's search for meaning (Translated by Ilse Lasch).Man's search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.).APA uses the translator's initials, last name, and the abbreviation Trans., not the phrase "translated by."
- (Frankl, 2006)(Frankl, 1946/2006)A translated book with a known original date takes both years in the text, original first.
- (Original work published 1973)(Original work published 1963)The original date is when the book first appeared in its original language, not when the first English translation came out.
- Naissance de la clinique: Une archéologie du regard médical [The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception].Naissance de la clinique: Une archéologie du regard médical [The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception].Only the title as printed is italic. Your bracketed English translation of it isn't.
Quick checklist
- The author, not the translator, in the author position
- The year of the translation you read
- The title as your copy prints it, in italics and sentence case
- (T. Translator, Trans.) right after the title
- (Original work published Year) at the end, using the original-language year
- Both years in the text, original first: (Frankl, 1946/2006)
- A book in another language: an English title in square brackets, not italic
Questions students ask
Where does the translator go in an APA 7 reference?
In parentheses right after the title, initials first, followed by a comma and Trans.: (I. Lasch, Trans.). The translator doesn't go in the author position or in the in-text citation.
Why are there two years in the in-text citation for a translated book?
The first year is when the book was originally published, and the second is the year of the translation you read. Together they tell your reader the work is older than your copy: (Frankl, 1946/2006).
How do I cite a book written in another language that I read untranslated?
Write the title as it's printed, in italics, then your English translation of the title in square brackets, not italic. There's no translator and no Original work published, because you read the original.
What if the translator isn't named?
Leave the translator out and keep the rest of the reference the same, including the original year at the end. Check the title page and the copyright page first, since that's where translation credits usually are.
What if the same person edited and translated the book?
Name them once, with both roles: initials, last name, a comma, and Ed. & Trans., all in the parentheses after the title. Translations of Freud by James Strachey are the classic case.
What if I can't find the original publication year?
Leave off (Original work published …) and cite only the year of your translation, in both the reference and the text. The copyright page of a translation usually names the original title and year, so look there first.
Related guides
Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.15, 9.38, 9.39, and 10.2, and the APA Style website's book reference examples and its posts on citing translated works, citing works in another language, and citing your own translations (on its paraphrasing page). Example sources verified against Library of Congress catalog data (via Open Library) for the Beacon Press edition's translation credit, the Vintage edition, and the 1963 Presses universitaires de France edition, and Beacon Press's listing for the dates.