Citation is a worldwide phenomenon. It needs to be considered in the international context. This study examines four common modalities (physical accessibility, cognitive accessibility, perceived quality, and perceived importance) underlying the complex citation practice by translation analysis. In an analysis of the Chinese literature in library and information science, it was found that there is a very strong correlation between languages cited and languages translated (r = 0.978). The overall national citation pattern of foreign publications is highly correlated with its translation pattern (r = 0.897). There is approximately 57% overlap between the group of the 60 most heavily cited authors and the group of the 60 most frequently translated authors. Highly cited publications are more likely to be translated (54.5 vs. 13.8%).