1. A method, comprising: receiving a query to an XML document, where the XML document stores a translation for a data element; determining if the query includes identifying elements that identify the query as being configured to act on a translation-enabled database and, if the query includes identifying elements, selecting an explicit query mode that controls an XPath logic to use a normalized translation function to process the query; determining whether a terminal node in an XPath associated with the query refers to a translatable element, and if the terminal node in the XPath associated with the query is determined to refer to a translatable element, selecting an implicit query mode for querying the XML document, wherein the query is rewritten for use by a translate function; and querying the XML document using the query and the selected query mode.