Amharic Church Translation: Live Amharic and Tigrinya Captions
Sermon Translate can show an English sermon as Amharic or Tigrinya captions while the pastor preaches. Both are reading languages in the app, so an Amharic or Tigrinya sermon cannot be translated into English with it yet.
Who it helps
Ethiopian and Eritrean believers who attend an English-speaking church, parents visiting their grown children's congregation, and new arrivals who have not yet learned English can read the sermon in Amharic or Tigrinya, in the Ethiopic script, on the projector or on their own phone.
- English sermon with Amharic captions
- English sermon with Tigrinya captions
- Both at once on the Subtitles screen for a mixed room
What works in each language today
Taken from the app's own language settings, so it matches what the app does now. Verse popups can show Bible text in English, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Farsi / Persian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German and Filipino / Tagalog.
- Amharic: reading language only, the app cannot yet listen to preaching in it; no built-in church vocabulary yet; no verse popup text in this language yet.
- Tigrinya: reading language only, the app cannot yet listen to preaching in it; no built-in church vocabulary yet; no verse popup text in this language yet.
What it does not do yet
The app cannot listen to Amharic or Tigrinya preaching, so an Ethiopian or Eritrean church that preaches in Amharic or Tigrinya cannot use it to caption the sermon in English today. We would rather say that plainly.
Set up the glossary
Neither language has built-in church vocabulary yet, so add your pastors' names, your ministries and the church terms your members expect to the church glossary before the first service, and ask a native reader to check the first Sunday's captions.
How to set it up for a service
One laptop, tablet or phone near the pulpit does the work. Give it clean sound from the sound desk or a microphone close to the preacher, sign in, choose the language being preached and the reading language or languages your members need, and start. The room reads the captions on the projector through the Subtitles screen, online viewers see them in the livestream through the OBS overlay, and members who prefer their own phone scan a QR code with QR Code Join, included in every plan, and read with no account.
- Before the service: add names, ministries and church terms to the glossary, and choose a Bible version for verse popups
- During the service: keep the device on power and online; captions follow the preaching sentence by sentence
- After the service: the transcript is saved to the account, and the Standard plan turns it into AI sermon notes
Can our pastor preach in Amharic with English captions?
Not yet. Amharic and Tigrinya are reading languages only in Sermon Translate.
Do readers need an account?
Not to read the projector or livestream. For their own phones, each reader needs their own account, and a plan once its free monthly hour is used, unless they scan the church's QR code (QR Code Join, included in every plan).
Is Oromo supported too?
Yes, Oromo is a supported caption language, also as a reading language only.
What does it cost to run this every Sunday?
Every account gets 1 free hour every month of live translation, enough to test a full service. Basic is $19.99 a month for 12 hours and Standard is $34 a month for 30 hours. Free and Basic include one reading language, Standard includes two and All Languages includes every language. Each language beyond that uses another hour of plan time for every hour of the service.