Valuable scholarly works are published in dozens of languages and researchers often come across resources that are published in languages they do not understand. It would not be practical to try to gain a mastery of a language just to read an article or book, so researchers can deploy a range of different tools to understand the resource.
The first step a research can take when faced with a language barrier is to see if a translation exist of the resource. Unfortunately, researchers need to be prepared for disappointment - creating a translation of a text is often an expensive process that publishers typically do not take on for scholarly books and articles unless they are very popular or ground-breaking. On the chance that the resource is translated, researchers can find the translation by:
Most authors of scholarly resources have published a lot of content that is all related to the same topic. This means that even if the resource you found isn't in English, the author may have other work that is published in English that covers similar material. Even better, if a translation of the resource does exist it will still be associated with the author so this would be a great way to find those! To find out if a author has published in English, follow the steps below:
This won't work for every resource as some researchers are not indexed on Google Scholar or just haven't published anything in English.
We have all heard language teachers bemoan the use of Google Translate or other translation software, so much so that students think that using it at all is against academic honesty policies. While it is true that using a translation software to write your language homework for you is academic dishonesty, using the same software to read scholarly works for non-language classes is perfectly acceptable and is the standard for most researchers and academics working with materials outside their language skills.
Keep in mind that these translation software options are far from perfect. Sentence structure and word choices will be strange and often non-sensical, and you will not get a useable translation for every sentence. However, you will likely be able to muddle through and gain a good understanding of the overall thesis and arguments of the resource.
If you do end up using a software-translated in your own work, be sure to cite it properly by noting that the resource was translated using software and which software was used. Avoid using direct quotes from the resource as your translated understanding of those quotes could be off.
Some databases have a machine translating feature included.