Translate your church service into Japanese

The Japanese-speaking diaspora

Japanese communities are present in major international cities — London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Paris, and Singapore. Japanese international students are highly educated and frequently attend university chaplaincies and international churches where services are in English. Japanese corporate employees on international assignments similarly attend English-language churches while abroad. For these communities, a Japanese translation option signals genuine welcome and enables much deeper spiritual engagement.

Bible availability in Japanese

The Japanese Bible is available in the widely used 新改訳聖書 (New Japanese Bible, NJB), the 新共同訳 (New Interconfessional Translation), and the 口語訳 (Colloquial Version). Japanese Christian vocabulary is distinctive and well-established, having been shaped by both Catholic and Protestant missionary traditions since the 16th and 19th centuries respectively.

Script and display notes

Japanese uses a combination of three scripts: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji (Chinese characters). Voco renders Japanese text in standard modern Japanese script. All three scripts display correctly on modern smartphones.

Using Voco for Japanese church translation

Many Japanese attendees at English-language churches are spiritually open and engaged but linguistically isolated from the teaching. For university churches, international congregations, and city-centre evangelical churches, Japanese translation via Voco requires no additional volunteers, no interpreter, and no change to the service — only a QR code displayed on screen.

Helpful guides