Yes, NLT is a translation, although much more toward the "thought for thought" side than the more literal "word for word" translations like NASB and others. NLT was put together by a big team of scholars and essentially replaced The Living Bible, which was a one-person paraphrase. It tries to retain some of the freshness of The Living Bible but more accurately reflect the original languages. (I used to work for the publisher.
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Personally, I like NLT for devotional reading and ESV for Bible study. But both of my kids have NIV, which I think is a good middle ground if you're only going to use one version.
If you go to Biblegateway.com, you can look up a passage in multiple versions. I'd suggest looking up something familiar, like Psalm 23. That will give you a good feel for readability, differences in wording, etc.