Hmong Church Translation: Hmong Captions for English Sermons

Bridging the generations in Hmong churches

In many Hmong churches the young people preach and worship in English while elders understand Hmong best. When a youth pastor or guest speaker preaches in English, Hmong captions on the screen let the elders follow the same message.

What Sermon Translate does in Hmong

Hmong is a reading language: members can follow the sermon in Hmong captions, but the app cannot yet listen to a sermon preached in Hmong.

• There is no built-in Hmong church vocabulary yet. Bible references and church terms are translated with church context rather than matched to a standard Hmong form, so add your key names and terms to the church glossary.
• Verse popups cannot show the passage in Hmong yet, because the Bible editions connected today cover only English, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Farsi / Persian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German and Filipino / Tagalog.

Limits worth knowing

The app cannot listen to Hmong preaching, so a Hmong sermon cannot be translated into English with it today. Hmong also has no built-in church vocabulary, and the written form captions use may not match every reader's dialect or habits. Have a Hmong reader check the first services.

Make the first Sunday count

Add your pastors, elders, ministries and church terms to the church glossary with the Hmong wording your congregation uses, and keep the captions large on the Subtitles screen so elders can read them from their seats.

How a church sets up Hmong captions 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 Hmong as a reading language, 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 Hmong pastor preach in Hmong with English captions?

Not yet. Hmong is a reading language only.

Can the caption text be made bigger for elders?

Yes. The Subtitles screen lets you change the font, size, color, background and width of the captions.

Is there a free version?

Yes. 1 free hour of live translation every month. No credit card. It resets on the 1st.

What does it cost to show Hmong captions 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.

Can an English sermon be translated into Hmong live?

Yes. Choose English, or the language your pastor preaches in, as the speaker language and Hmong as the reading language. The app cannot yet listen to a sermon preached in Hmong, so this works in one direction.