Bracketed Translation
Supplying a translation or gloss inside square brackets within a quotation.
Square brackets inside a quotation always mark the quoting writer's hand. One common use is a translation or gloss: the original word stays, and the English equivalent follows immediately in brackets, so the reader is never guessing.
Keep the gloss minimal. Brackets are for the smallest intervention that restores comprehension — one word, a name, a unit — not for commentary, which belongs outside the quotation marks or in a note.
When the whole passage needs translating rather than a single term, use a full parallel translation instead, and credit the translator. Bracketing an entire sentence inside a quotation makes the original almost unreadable.
Common mistake: bracketing a paraphrase of what the speaker meant. That is interpretation, and slipping it inside the quotation marks misrepresents the source, however helpful the intent.
“"He spoke of Heimat [homeland] as something you could lose twice."”
Keep reading the glossary
Square brackets mark editorial changes inside a quotation — clarifications, edits, or [sic].
An editor's word or phrase inserted inside a quotation, marked with square brackets.
How to present a quotation in a language other than the language of your text.
Naming the translator, because a quotation in translation is also that translator's wording.