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. If you reproduce a passage from a published translation, cite the translation; if you translate the passage yourself, indicate that you have done so by including the abbreviation my trans. in your parenthetical citation (MLA Handbook 6.75).
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.
But there are a few cases where no such indication is necessary.
When the Quotation Is Very Short
If you translate a quotation of a single word or a phrase of a few words that presents no serious problem of translation, you can omit my trans. from the citation.
Neruda addresses the pre-Columbian Indigenous laborer as “hermano” (“brother”; 30).
Work Cited
Neruda, Pablo. Canto general. Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1981.
When a Term or Phrase That Is Not a Quotation Is Translated
Likewise, if you translate a term or phrase from another language that is not presented as a quotation, readers can assume that the translation is yours.
He was a member of an emerging class of gens de coleur libres (“free people of color”).
Where the Prose Makes Clear That the Translation Is Yours
You might convey in your prose that you are offering a translation of your own—for example, as an alternative to a published translation that you have cited.
Although in English the dichotomy is typically presented as one of coercion and consent, the Italian term consenso might instead be translated as “consensus.”
Titles of Works
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.
Work Cited
MLA Handbook. 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.