Frequently asked questions about live church translation

They point their phone camera at the church's QR code (or open the church's link), choose a language and start listening. It works in the browser on any smartphone. The listener guide shows it step by step, and you can print it for your welcome team.

No. There is no account to create and nothing to download. iPhone users who prefer an app can get one from the App Store; on Android, the browser works fine.

A translated voice that follows the speaker a few seconds behind, plus live captions in their language. They can turn the audio off and only read the captions, show the original English text next to the translation, or switch to a large-text reading mode.

For the translated audio, yes: one earbud or a pair of headphones, so the people around them are not distracted. Without earbuds they can still follow the live captions on their screen.

Yes. Spanish is one of the most requested languages, and many US churches start there. A bilingual English and Spanish church can also switch the speaker language when the pastor changes language. See Spanish translation for church.

79 languages, including Spanish, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Vietnamese, Filipino, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, French, Persian (Farsi), Hindi and many more. Your church can switch on up to 40 of them, and listeners search the list by name. The language overview has pages for the most common ones.

A few languages, such as Amharic, Burmese, Khmer and Kinyarwanda, have fewer resources behind them. They are marked Beta in your church settings. They work, but test them with a native speaker before using them in a real service.

Yes. Tigrinya, Somali, Haitian Creole, Pashto, Kurdish, Yoruba and Igbo are not available, and Cantonese is not available as a spoken option (Traditional Chinese is a script choice). More languages may follow.

Yes. The speaker language is chosen from the same 79 languages in your church settings, and the tech volunteer can switch it with one tap during the service. That is how churches handle a guest speaker or a bilingual service.

Yes. Every listener picks their own language, so one sermon can be heard in Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese at once. This is how multi-ethnic churches use it every week. Listeners per language are unlimited and cost nothing extra.

A laptop or phone with a browser, a stable internet connection and the sound of the speaker. The best audio comes from your sound board, for example through a USB audio interface into the laptop. No receivers, headsets or interpreter booth are needed: listeners use their own phones and earbuds. See audio setup.

Usually someone on the tech or A/V team. In the broadcast studio they pick the microphone input, check the level meter, show the QR code and press start. There is a pause button and a stop button. You can invite several team members so it never depends on one volunteer.

You pay in credits. 1 credit is 1 minute of translation into 1 language, and a language only uses credits while someone is listening to it. A 90-minute service into Spanish and Korean uses 2 × 90 = 180 credits. The cost guide has more examples.

Lite $65 a month (480 credits), Duo $100 a month (960 credits), Standard $250 a month (2,400 credits, with transcripts by email after each service and a team of technicians) and Complete $400 a month (4,320 credits, the lowest price per credit). Full details are on the pricing page.

Monthly plan credits expire at the next month. Extra credit packs never expire: 300 credits for $50, 600 for $90 and 1,800 for $255. Packs work well for churches that only translate now and then.

Yes. After you register your church, you get a free 10-minute trial service. You can also look at the demo.

Yes. Churches in the Americas can use the church portal in English, with their own time zone and prices in US dollars.

No audio recordings are stored. A text transcript of each broadcast is kept in your church's own archive, managed by your church, and you can correct it afterward.

Yes. Listeners can ask to receive the transcript by email in their language after the service. Their email address is deleted after 30 days.

Audio is streamed over LiveKit, a real-time audio platform. Google's Gemini API (paid tier) recognizes, translates and voices the speech. Requests on the paid API are not used to train Google's models, though Google may keep them briefly to monitor for abuse. Processing can happen anywhere in the world. For the full picture, read our privacy policy.

ChurchTranslate is a translation tool and makes no claims about ADA compliance or assistive listening certification. Some people like the live captions and the large-text reading mode, but if your church has accessibility obligations, keep the systems you already rely on.

Good enough to follow a sermon, prayers and announcements, a few seconds behind the speaker. It is not perfect. Bible names, theological terms and quoted verses are the hardest part. ChurchTranslate keeps church terms in mind and corrects known terms in the captions, but clear speech and a clean feed from the sound board make the biggest difference.

For a normal Sunday sermon, it is a practical alternative. For pastoral counseling, anything with legal or medical weight, or very emotional moments like a eulogy, a human interpreter is often the better choice. Read the honest comparison in interpreter or AI translation.

It is built for speech. Sung words may partly come through, but for worship songs and hymns, lyrics projected or printed in two languages work better.

Yes, as long as there is a microphone, a stable internet connection and a laptop or phone for the broadcast. One church account runs one live broadcast at a time. See conferences and camps.