Translation of church services  

Enabling people from all nations to fully participate - Joanna Schüder shares some of Didcot Baptist Church’s ongoing journey with translation technology 

In recent years the congregation worshipping at Didcot Baptist Church has become increasingly ethnically diverse, with at least 15 different countries and languages now represented.

Over the last three years, as refugees from Ukraine, Hong Kong, Afghanistan and others began to move to Didcot we have also been welcoming many different nationalities during the week. Working together with people from other local churches we first started the English conversation class, then international café, and this year also the Dorcas sewing group and Cantonese Alpha course.


Following on from Cantonese Alpha

Some of those from Hong Kong who were coming to the Cantonese Alpha course were interested in attending church services, but their level of English was still limited, and so they were reticent. We therefore began exploring translation as a way of making our Sunday services more accessible.


Researching the possibilities

We contacted Welcome Churches’ UKHK project for advice (churches@ukhk.org) on simultaneous translation into Cantonese. They gave us some very helpful suggestions, including the excellent document “How to decide whether to use machine translation in church services” by Peter Bates (available here) which shares the feedback and practical advice gained from a 2024 survey of UK churches that are using different forms of this technology.


Trialling machine translation

Based on this we decided to initially test Microsoft Translator as it is free. We used this through our sound desk’s audio feed and had a couple of people who are fluent in both Cantonese and English (and another German/English) test it one Sunday service.

However, we found that the web app is no longer supported and felt it was not satisfactory. (It kept cutting out, the translation itself was not very good, e.g. translating "Amen" into Cantonese as "Hey, waiter!". It also began to translate before the sentence was finished, therefore needing to keep revising itself as the context/whole sentence became clear, which made it hard to follow.)

So we switched instead to trialling Hope Translator which offered 60 minutes free trial. This was much better; it did not cut out at all, and waited until the end of a sentence before translating this, so with just a slight delay.

While the translation provided was not absolutely perfect, it seemed about 90-95 per cent accurate. So, after this initial assessment we started a trial period of four weeks, buying a month’s subscription to Hope Translator ($7.99), and opening it up to the whole congregation to try. We shared the QR code on the screen, and explained that people just needed to scan the QR code and select their language in order to receive a live written transcript and translation onto their mobile phone.

The feedback from users was very positive.

After a couple of weeks we were also able to receive two weeks free trial of Breeze Translate and decided to run this in parallel with Hope Translator. We continued to publicise this trial through notices at the start of the service, the screen at the front, and posters around the sanctuary. We listened to the feedback about both machine translation systems from those who had used them.

Languages trialled by members of the congregation included: Cantonese, Portuguese, Korean, Ukrainian, Farsi, Tamil, Spanish, Malay, Sanskrit and German.


Considering data protection

We also used the trial period to look into the potential data protection issues. We recognised that we would be recording, transcribing, translating and distributing verbal communication during the course of our services in a new way; that the processing of this data involves transferring the data over the internet to a third-party company; that it could involve personally identifiable information for which we may not have the explicit consent related to people's religious beliefs and personal health/wellbeing.

Therefore we completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment (using the template form provided here by the Information Commissioner’s Office) which helped us to think through the scope, context and purpose of the data processing, how we would consult with congregation and church members, and to identify and mitigate any risks.

In conclusion we decided to:

1. Chose to go with Breeze Translate rather than Hope Translator so that the data can be held in the UK (rather than the US) and it is all GDPR compliant
2. Ask people requesting prayer whether they consent for their details to be shared in a service when machine translation is used (explaining the risks).
3. Inform the whole congregation at the start of services, and on the rolling notices slide, and on the QR code poster, that audio recording and transcription is taking place, so that they can choose what information to share and can speak to someone if they have any concerns.
4. Ask everyone who is due to be speaking in a service to only use first names, rather than surnames, unless the explicit consent of the person has been given (as we did during the trial period), and not to identify anyone with a politically sensitive country.
5. Ask users of the translation service to remove the transcript and translation from their devices within 24 hours and not pass on anything to a third party.

Starting to use Breeze Translate

Apart from the data processing concerns, we decided to choose Breeze Translate over Hope Translator because the translation quality seemed to be similar in both (but noticeably better for Korean with Breeze), and Hope Translator did not offer all the languages we wanted (e.g. Ukrainian and Farsi).

The Church Members’ Meeting voted in agreement to use Breeze Translate in our Sunday services to help fulfil our vision to be a 'welcoming community, following Jesus and making Him known'.

We have now taken out a 6 month subscription (£260) giving us unlimited usage on Sundays and any number of languages from the 240 offered.

We issue a disclaimer that 'The live machine translation by Breeze Translate will not be 100% accurate. Didcot Baptist Church (DBC) cannot be held responsible for any errors. If you are unsure whether you have understood something correctly, please ask someone'.

We felt this was necessary as there are a few mistakes, usually on account of the software not correctly picking up a word someone said (typically due to a strong accent, poor annunciation or use of acronyms) thus transcribing it wrongly.


Experiencing the blessings

However, overall the translation is amazingly good and we are very thankful for the blessings of using this translation for our services. It has been wonderful to hear how much it has been appreciated by people who had previously understood very little of the service but now are able to follow everything. One man who is new to Christianity enthusiastically retold the content of the sermon and how he had understood that God will forgive even the worst of sins!

We want everyone to be able to access our services and fully understand them, so that they can come to faith and grow in their faith. We want to ensure that no one is excluded from our services and church family. We want to show that we love, welcome and value people of all ethnicities from all nations. We want to be able to encourage internationals with limited English who currently do not attend church, e.g. people who attend English conversation class, international café and Dorcas sewing project, to join us.

We trust that the translation of our services is contributing to achieving all of these things.
 

Joanna Schüder, International Ministries Deacon, Didcot Baptist Church