Changelog

Church Translation charges per active language, and until now a language stayed on your list forever. One visitor who picked Ukrainian last spring has been adding to the bill at every service since — whether or not anyone read it. This release lets your language list follow your actual congregation.

• Languages switch off when nobody is listening: Set how long a language may go without a listener — anything from 1 minute to 24 hours — and Church Translation switches it off on its own. Nothing is deleted. The language simply stops being translated, and stops being charged.

• They come back by themselves: The moment a visitor with that language opens the app, it switches back on within seconds. No tap on the language picker, no approval from you, nothing for them to notice.

• You choose how far it reaches: Switch off only the languages visitors added themselves, or every language including the ones you added yourself.

• The language you speak is never touched: Your speech-to-text language always stays on. So does a language showing on the projector while you're translating — the projector serves exactly the people who aren't holding a phone.

• Off for your church until you switch it on: If you were already with us, nothing changes. Your languages behave exactly as they did yesterday until you turn this on yourself.

To get started:

• Go to Settings → Translation Settings

• Find "Switch off languages nobody is listening to" and click Edit

• Choose "Languages visitors added themselves" or "Every language, including the ones you added", then Save

• Under "How long to wait before switching a language off", pick your window. Churches joining today start on After 5 minutes

• Optionally, under "Catch up visitors who arrive late", decide how much of the service a latecomer gets translated. This is Off by default, because catching someone up costs translation

One thing worth knowing: the saving comes from not translating into a language nobody was listening to — so the archive for that stretch has nothing in that language to show. Rather than leaving it blank, we show the words in the language spoken at the service, with a short note explaining why. If members of your church read the archive back during the week without ever joining live, a longer window keeps more of it in their own language.

The Keyword Booster tells the speech recognition which words to expect, so names like Habakkuk, Nebuchadnezzar or Zerubbabel come out right instead of turning into something else. This release makes it far bigger, and gives you a curated starting point so you no longer have to build your list from scratch.

• Up to 1,000 Keywords: For most languages you can now add up to 1,000 keywords — a big step up from before. Swiss German supports up to 500. Your limit is shown right in the Keyword Booster, and it adjusts automatically to the language you're working on.

• Ready-Made Default Lists: We've prepared curated biblical keyword lists of up to 900 words for English, German, Danish, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese — book names, people, places and distinctive theological terms, each in that language's own Bible tradition.

• Load Them With One Click: Open Keyword Booster and click "Load default keywords". The list drops straight into the editor for you to review before saving, so nothing is added behind your back.

• Nothing Gets Overwritten: Keywords you already added stay exactly as they are — loading the defaults only adds what's missing, and duplicates are skipped.

• Room Left for Your Own Words: The default lists deliberately stop short of the limit, leaving space for the terms only your church needs — your town, your pastor's name, your ministries, your series titles.

One thing worth knowing: the default lists skip the everyday words (God, faith, grace, prayer) on purpose. Speech recognition already gets those right, and every slot spent on them is a slot not spent on the names it actually struggles with.

This release is all about giving your service hosts more freedom and control behind the desk. Run live translation the way that fits your setup — straight from a physical soundboard, or from anywhere in the app.

• Hands-Free Control with MIDI: Connect a MIDI controller and start or stop live translation without ever touching the computer. Map a physical button to start, another to stop — or use a single button to toggle — right from your Settings. Set it up once, and it's ready for every service.

• Glance-and-Know LED Feedback: Your mapped button lights up while you're recording, so a single look at the board tells you you're live — no need to turn back to the screen.

• Leave the Translation Page While Recording: Your recording now keeps running as you move around the app. Jump to your announcements, check a preparation, or open settings mid-service — your live translation never skips a beat.

• Always-Visible Recording Indicator: A new indicator in the top bar shows your running recording time wherever you are, with quick Stop and back-to-translation buttons always within reach. (In manual mode, we'll still check with you before you leave, since that mode needs you on the page.)

To get started:

• Go to Settings

• In “Speech-to-text settings” you will see MIDI controls

• Grant permissions for the browser to use MIDI

• Connect your MIDI controller to your computer

• Either select 2 Buttons (one for start, one for stop) or 1 Button (same button for start/stop)

• Click on Listen

• Press the button on your MIDI controller to connect

A note on desktop apps: Because modern browsers now support MIDI controllers directly, we're no longer planning to release a dedicated native Mac or Windows application — everything you need works right in your browser. If a native desktop app is still important for your church, please reach out and let's talk.