Arabic Church Translation App: Live Sermon Captions in Arabic and English

Who needs live Arabic translation in church?

Arabic-speaking believers come from many countries and many church traditions, and a growing number of them sit in English-speaking congregations. A church that welcomes an Arabic-speaking family usually meets the same gap on the first Sunday: the family follows the music and the greetings, then loses the thread when the sermon starts.

The need runs the other way too. An Arabic-speaking pastor may lead a congregation where the teenagers read English more comfortably than Arabic, so one half of the room hears the message in full and the other half gets only pieces. Live captions let both groups read the same sermon at the same moment.

• An English-speaking church with Arabic-speaking members or visitors.
• An Arabic-speaking church whose second generation reads English.
• A church or ministry serving resettled families, where the sermon is one of several places language gets in the way.
• A pastor who preaches in English and wants Arabic-speaking neighbors to follow along.

Does it work from Arabic to English and from English to Arabic?

Yes, in both directions. Arabic is on the list of languages a preacher can speak into the app and on the list of languages members can read, so you choose the speaker language once and one or more reading languages for the room. The transcript and the captions appear sentence by sentence while the pastor speaks.

The Arabic church translation page gives the short version of this setup, and the step by step guide walks through the first service from microphone to screen.

How do right to left captions work on a projector and on phones?

Arabic captions are laid out right to left, so lines start at the right edge and read toward the left, the way an Arabic reader expects. The same applies on a phone screen and on the projector or livestream view.

For a shared screen, the Subtitles screen can show up to 5 caption languages at once, so an Arabic line and an English line can sit together for a bilingual room. You can adjust the font, size, color, background, width and alignment, which matters for Arabic script because small text on a distant screen is hard to read.

For phones, QR Code Join lets members scan a code from the projector and read in a browser with no account and no app. Each listener picks the language they want, so an Arabic reader and an English reader can sit side by side and each see their own language.

What about Arabic and Farsi or other languages in the same room?

Some churches serve Arabic speakers and Persian speakers together, and some have a mix of three or four languages. The app can show several caption languages at once, but every extra reading language has a cost in plan time, and it helps to know the rule before you plan a service.

Each language beyond what the plan includes uses another hour of plan time for every hour recorded, whether the host picked it or a listener on a QR code did. It is never refused, but it does use up hours. An hour of preaching with Arabic, Farsi and English readers on a Basic plan therefore uses more than one hour of the month.

How accurate is it with Arabic dialects and church vocabulary?

Arabic is spoken very differently from region to region, and a preacher's own dialect affects how well the speech is recognized. The app hears Arabic and translates what it recognizes, but clear audio and a steady speaking pace matter more than anything else. A pastor who speaks directly into a good microphone will get better captions than one who walks away from it.

On church vocabulary, be realistic. The 66 Bible book names come from the New Arabic Version (Ketab El Hayat), so a spoken book name comes out the way that Bible writes it. Arabic does not have the full built-in doctrinal vocabulary that seven languages have, so terms and church titles get general translation with the church context prompt. The church glossary lets you fix the names of speakers, elders, ministries, places and doctrinal terms with the wording you want, applied to every translation.

What does it cost for an Arabic ministry?

Every account without a paid plan gets 1 free hour of live translation each calendar month, resetting on the 1st, with no credit card. That is enough to test one real sermon. Basic is $19.99 a month for 12 hours and 1 active device. Standard is $34 a month for 30 hours and up to 2 devices, which works out to about $1.13 an hour, and it includes the Subtitles screen, transcripts and AI sermon notes.

New subscribers get 50% off the first month of any monthly plan, and extra hours can be bought one time, with unused hours carrying over. QR Code Join is included in every plan. The pricing page lists every option.

If a service runs past the hours left, it keeps going and is not cut off mid-sermon, up to 90 extra minutes on a paid plan and 30 on the free hour. A new service cannot start until hours are added or the month resets.

How do you test it before a Sunday?

1. Record or play a recent sermon from your own preacher, not a studio sample, so the dialect and the microphone are the real ones.
2. Use this month's free hour, set the speaker language to Arabic or English, and pick one reading language.
3. Ask a native Arabic reader to read the captions and mark every line that is wrong, awkward or missing a church term.
4. Add the corrections to the church glossary and run the same passage again to see whether the wording improves.
5. Test the room: project the screen at the back of the sanctuary and ask someone to read it from the last row.

Do this before you promise the congregation anything. A short test with a native reader tells you more than any feature list, and it shows whether you need a better microphone or a feed from the sound desk.

Honest limits for Arabic-speaking congregations

• Captions are text only. Members who cannot read comfortably may still need a human interpreter.
• It needs an internet connection on the translating device and on every phone reading captions.
• Arabic has Bible book names built in but not a full doctrinal glossary, so check names and church terms before a special service.
• Dialect, accent and audio quality all change accuracy, and sung worship captions poorly.
• Verse popups do not show Arabic Bible text yet.

Frequently asked questions

Can Sermon Translate translate an Arabic sermon into English live?

Yes. Arabic is a speaker language and a caption language, so an Arabic sermon can be captioned in English while the pastor preaches, and an English sermon can be captioned in Arabic.

Are Arabic captions written right to left?

Yes. Arabic captions are laid out right to left on the phone, the projector and the Subtitles screen.

Which Arabic Bible do the book names come from?

The 66 book names come from the New Arabic Version (Ketab El Hayat), so a spoken book name comes out the way that Bible writes it.

Do people need an account to read Arabic captions on their phones?

No. With QR Code Join, included in every plan, they scan the church's QR code and read in a browser with no account and no app, and each person picks their own language.

Can I try it for free?

Yes. Every account without a paid plan gets 1 free hour of live translation each month, with no credit card.

Try Sermon Translate at your next service

Start with 1 free hour every month, no credit card needed. Plans start at $19.99 a month.