Translate your church service into Amharic

What Beta means

There is less language data for Amharic than for languages such as Spanish or Polish, and we have not yet been able to confirm the quality in a real service. Churches therefore see a Beta label next to Amharic in the settings. Google, whose Gemini models do the translation, publishes no quality tiers per language; the label is our own estimate. Amharic may work well for your congregation, or it may struggle with names and church terms. The only way to know is to test it with people who speak the language.

Ethiopian Christians in Britain

London has Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo parishes and Ethiopian evangelical churches, and smaller fellowships meet in other cities, often in a borrowed church building. Many Ethiopians also attend local churches: families who live far from an Ethiopian congregation, students, and people married to British partners. Amharic is the language of school, of many sermons and of many songs, even for Ethiopians whose mother tongue is Oromo or another language. Oromo itself is not available.

Eritreans and Tigrinya

Many Eritrean newcomers, and Ethiopians from Tigray, speak Tigrinya. Tigrinya is not available in ChurchTranslate, and Amharic is not a substitute for it. Some older Eritreans understand Amharic, but for others it carries painful associations, and many younger Eritreans do not speak it at all. Please do not offer Amharic to Eritrean visitors as if it were their language. English, or Arabic for those who read it, may be a better bridge for now, and for pastoral conversations a Tigrinya-speaking member or interpreter is far better. More languages may follow.

How to test Amharic

1. 01
   Find two or three native speakers

   Ask Ethiopian members, ideally of different ages and church backgrounds, to help you judge it.

2. 02
   Use the free trial

   After signing up you get a free 10-minute trial service. Read a passage from a real sermon, with Bible names in it, while they listen in another room.

3. 03
   Ask specific questions

   Could they follow the meaning? Did the voice sound natural? Were names such as Moses, Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit recognisable in the captions?

4. 04
   Decide together

   If it works, announce it modestly as a trial and ask for feedback after a few weeks. If it does not, keep using English captions and people for now.

The checklist for your first translated service covers the rest of the preparation.

How listeners use it

Listeners scan the QR code, choose አማርኛ and hear a translated voice with captions in Ge'ez script. There is no account and nothing to install. They can switch the audio off and only read, or show the original English alongside, which helps those who are learning English and lets them check a sentence that sounds odd.

Cost

Testing costs very little: the free trial is 10 minutes, and after that a language only uses credits while someone is listening. A 90-minute service into Amharic uses 90 credits. See the pricing.