Haitian Creole Church Translation: Live Kreyòl Captions for English and French Sermons

Who needs live Haitian Creole translation in church?

Many Haitian believers read French, but Kreyòl is the language of home, of prayer and of the kitchen table. A sermon that is clear in English or French can still land differently when it is read in the language a person thinks in. That gap shows up in a few kinds of churches.

• An English-speaking church that has welcomed Haitian families and wants them to follow the whole message.
• A Haitian church that preaches in French and wants Kreyòl captions for members who read Kreyòl more easily.
• A Haitian church with an English-speaking second generation and an English-speaking guest preacher.
• A shared building or a joint service where a Haitian congregation and an English-speaking congregation sit in the same room.

Live captions let everyone read the same sermon at the same moment, without splitting the service or waiting for a volunteer interpreter. The short version of this setup is on the Haitian Creole church translation page.

Which directions work for Haitian Creole?

Be exact about this before you promise anything to the congregation. In Sermon Translate, Haitian Creole is a caption language only. Members can read Kreyòl captions, but the app cannot use Kreyòl as the language the preacher speaks.

French is a full speaker language and caption language in the app, so a church whose pastor preaches in French can show French, Kreyòl and English lines together. The French church translation page covers that side. If your pastor preaches in Kreyòl from the pulpit, this tool is not the right fit today, and a human interpreter is still the answer.

Should the screen show Kreyòl, French or both?

Do not decide this for the families. Some members read French comfortably and prefer it, others read Kreyòl first, and younger people may read English best. The respectful way to handle it is to ask, and to let each person choose.

That is what QR Code Join is for. You project a code, people scan it with the phone camera, and they read in a browser with no account and no app. Each listener picks the language they want, so a Kreyòl reader and a French reader can sit side by side. For a shared screen, the Subtitles screen can show up to 5 caption languages at once, so a Kreyòl line and a French line can sit together for a mixed room.

• Ask a few families which language they read most comfortably before the first service.
• Keep the QR code on the screen for the whole sermon, not only in the first minute.
• If one language is clearly the larger group, put it on the main screen and let the others read on their phones.

How do you handle church words when there is no Kreyòl glossary?

Haitian Creole gets general translation with the church context prompt. It has no built-in church vocabulary yet, and its 66 Bible book names are not taken from a published Bible the way they are for languages such as French. That means a church term or a book name can come out in a form your members would not use themselves.

The church glossary is how you close that gap. Before the first service, add the names of your pastors, deacons, choirs and ministries, and the Kreyòl church terms your members use, with the wording you want. The app applies them to every translation, so a name does not come out three different ways in one sermon.

1. List the names of people, ministries and places that appear in a normal Sunday.
2. List the church terms your members say aloud, in the spelling your church prefers.
3. Ask a native Kreyòl reader to mark every caption line that sounds wrong or foreign.
4. Add those corrections to the glossary and run the same passage again.

What does it cost with Kreyòl, French and English in the room?

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. The plans below are priced in US dollars and each includes a set number of reading languages.

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 Kreyòl, French and English readers on a Standard plan therefore uses more than one hour of the month, because the third language is beyond the two the plan includes.

New subscribers get 50% off the first month of any monthly plan, extra hours can be bought one time, and unused hours carry over. 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.

How do you test it before a Sunday?

1. Use a recent recording or a live practice from your own preacher, not a studio sample, so the accent and the microphone are the real ones.
2. Use this month's free hour, set the speaker language to English or French, and pick Haitian Creole as the reading language.
3. Ask a native Kreyòl 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. Project the screen and have someone read it from the last row of the sanctuary.

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 clean feed from the sound desk.

What about a pastoral visit with a family that speaks little English?

A sermon is one place where language gets in the way. A first visit, a hospital room or a conversation about housing is another. Conversation Mode puts two languages on one phone with one microphone: each half of the screen shows the other person's words translated, and either half can be flipped to face the other person. The app has to hear the speaker, so check the spoken languages on the pastoral visits article before you plan on it for a visit where one person speaks only Kreyòl.

Honest limits for Haitian Creole congregations

• Haitian Creole is a reading language only, so a sermon preached in Kreyòl cannot be captioned in English or French yet.
• There is no built-in Kreyòl church vocabulary, so names and church terms need the glossary and a native reader's review.
• Captions are text. 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.
• Accent, speaking pace and audio quality all change accuracy, and sung worship captions poorly.

Frequently asked questions

Can Sermon Translate show a sermon in Haitian Creole?

Yes. An English or French sermon can be shown as Haitian Creole captions while the pastor preaches. Haitian Creole is a reading language in the app.

Can our pastor preach in Haitian Creole and show English captions?

Not yet. The app can write captions in Kreyòl but cannot listen to Kreyòl preaching, so a sermon preached in Kreyòl cannot be translated into English with it today.

Can one service show Kreyòl and French at the same time?

Yes. The Subtitles screen shows up to 5 caption languages at once, and listeners on a QR code each pick their own language. Every reading language beyond what your plan includes uses extra plan time.

Do families need an account to read 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.