Category: Partnerships

Now, for the first time, everything that YouVersion has to offer—the interfaces at YouVersion.com and in the Bible App™, technical support, communication, of course Bibles, and so much more—are all available completely in Dutch. While we’ve offered a Dutch language option at YouVersion.com for some time, the website is just one small piece of the YouVersion world.

Dutch represents our tenth complete language launch. The first was English, followed by Norwegian, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Russian, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and most recently, German. And today, we’re excited to share with you many of the ways that you can now engage with the YouVersion community—entirely in Dutch:

• Menus, Buttons and Controls in Dutch. Thanks to our world-changing community of YouVersion volunteers, you can now experience the entire YouVersion user interface in Dutch, directly on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android, or BlackBerry device. Simply set your default language to Dutch.
• Communication in Dutch. At the top right of our blog’s English version, one of the alternate languages you can select is Nederlands. Whether you start there or simply jump straight to the Dutch version, you’ll find blog posts relevant to you, written in Dutch. You can also connect with us in Dutch on Facebook or Twitter, or email us a question in Dutch. And we’ll get back to you—in Dutch! How do we do it? We couldn’t… except that amazing Dutch-speaking YouVersion volunteers are passionately devoted to assisting you in your own language.
• Dutch Technical Support. If you have any questions about YouVersion.com or about the Bible App, try visiting our all-new Tech Support site, also available completely in Dutch. And even if you don’t find what you’re looking for there, send us your question in Dutch, and Dutch-speaking volunteers trained in YouVersion support will gladly get back to you.

Your story is an important part of YouVersion’s story. If you’d like to share how YouVersion has helped you connect with the Bible, please come tell us on Facebook and Twitter. And if you have friends whose heart language is Dutch, please direct them to the Bible App and YouVersion.com, too. Our desire is to help as many people as possible freely, easily engage with God’s Word, all over the world, and in any language. Your participation makes that happen.

We’re glad you’re here! We couldn’t be happier to welcome you, our Dutch-speaking friends, to our growing YouVersion family. Please keep checking our blog in the coming days, and we’ll share more details with you about all that this Dutch language launch means. And most of all, please start sharing and getting to know other people in your YouVersion community. Welcome!

At YouVersion, we’re convinced that experiencing the Bible in your own language is the most powerful way you can engage with what God wants to say to your heart. Translating the Bible into the many languages that people ask for is not something we would be able to do ourselves. Fortunately, partners from Bible publishing societies around the world generously join with YouVersion to make sure that as many people as possible have access to God’s Word. Another thing we could never do on our own is translate the many tools YouVersion provides—interfaces, menus, websites, blogs, tech support, etc.—into every language. And that’s where you come in. The same passionate commitment of an extraordinary, worldwide community of volunteers has already brought YouVersion to you in English, Norwegian, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese, and now—in German. We are honored to serve in God’s kingdom with you.

Bible Publishing Societies

Our partners have graciously provided the YouVersion community with several options that allow us to together enjoy the Bible in German:

• Neue Genfer Übersetzung (NGÜ2011). Offered by the Geneva Bible Society, the New Geneva version of the Bible includes the New Testament and Psalms. This translation is well-regarded both for its accuracy and for its writing style: easy-to-understand, contemporary German.
• Schlachter 2000 (SCH2000). Franz Eugen Schlachter, the son of Franz Joseph Butcher, was a Protestant theologian and pastor who translated the entire Bible into populist German from the original Hebrew and Greek. First published in 1905, his “Butcher’s Bible” grew in popularity throughout the 20th century, largely because he had managed to keep its concepts accessible through simple language, even as he maintained exceptional accuracy to the original source texts he used. Because of its popularity and historical significance, the Geneva Bible Society republished it as an updated version in 2000.
• Hoffnung für Alle (HFA). Provided by Biblica, the HFA is a very popular German version of the entire Bible, striving more for smooth and comfortable reading in conversational German than for a strict, literal, word-for-word interpretation.

In addition to these more contemporary translations from publishing partners, YouVersion also offers “classic” versions available in the public domain, including Albrecht New Testament and Psalms (GANTP), Elberfelder 1871 (ELB), and of course the timeless Luther Bible 1912 (DELUT).

Volunteers

While great German translations are absolutely necessary for German readers and speakers to engage in the Scriptures, YouVersion has several other important pieces. The Bible App™ is only useful if its users can actually read its controls, buttons, and menus. Volunteers from all over the world united their ability to translate with their love of God’s Word, to make these tools as easy as possible for German users. And while YouVersion’s German-speaking community is already awesome, certainly we can always use more help. We never stop working on growing and improving the Bible App, not to mention all our other tools. We also now offer assistance and technical support in German, whether requests come in through email, Facebook, or Twitter. If you can help with German translation in any of these areas, please let us know.

So what’s it like to translate for YouVersion? Here’s what just a few amazing German language volunteers recently had to say about their own experiences serving the YouVersion community all around the world:

“It’s my deep desire to read God’s Word. Unfortunately, I’m not always getting down to it very regular. I’m studying Computer Science so I’m naturally using my computer and smartphone a lot. This is how I first stumbled upon YouVersion’s Bible App. It made my daily reading a lot easier. At first, when I used it, the App was kind of unstable, and I thought about joining the dev team to improve it. Then I heard about helping as translator. Immediately I volunteered. During recent months the developers put great work in the App, and I was thankful helping out by translating. May the YouVersion community reach a lot of German people, and may everyone be blessed as I got blessed.”
—Manuel W., Darmstadt, Germany

 

“I find the YouVersion Bible App very useful, and I like to help make it available to as many people as possible. For several years, I have been doing volunteer work as a translator and proofreader for various Christian projects. I know this is a special task God wants me to fulfill.”
—Barbara S., Stetten am kalten Markt, Germany

 

“One year ago I first discovered YouVersion while I was looking for Japanese and Korean translations of the Bible. I’m studying these languages and wanted to combine reading the Bible with my study of these two languages. Later that year I read about a need for German volunteers at YouVersion, and I thought about getting more involved. At first I translated into my mother tongue, and now I’m a member of the German support team. It really helps me to improve my translation skills and is a great service for God.”
—Steffen B., Germany

 

“I always had difficulty getting myself to read the Bible every day. I’m an engineer, and I have a smartphone, and one day I found the Bible App from YouVersion. It took me a little while, but once I had spent some time exploring the Bible App, I actually found myself reading God’s Word more consistently. While I don’t mind using an app that’s in English, I know that deters many other people. Then, when I saw that YouVersion was asking for help translating their interface, I realized that I had the chance not just to be a part of the YouVersion community, but to actually help other people use God’s Word more. Now I’m very excited about what God is bringing to our work at YouVersion.”
—Tobias K., Leipzig, Germany

If you read or speak German, no matter where you live in the world, the YouVersion community is excited to welcome you to the Bible App™ and to YouVersion.com! Thanks to partnerships with generous publishers of Bibles in German, the rapidly growing global community of YouVersion users now has access to popular German versions like Hoffnung für Alle (HFA), easy-reading translations like Neue Genfer Übersetzung (NGU2011) and Schlachter 2000 (SCH2000), and even beloved classics like the Luther Bible 1912 (DELUT) and Elberfelder 1871 (ELB).

Although everything at YouVersion is centered around the Bible, that’s just one aspect of what we do. YouVersion also has an extraordinary community of volunteers who have recently devoted themselves to bringing everything YouVersion has to offer to readers and speakers of German. And that doesn’t only mean the interface (menus and buttons), but also exchanges on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, conversations in email, reading plans—even comprehensive technical support!

• German Speakers in Germany. According to Wikipedia, German is the most commonly spoken first language in the European Union, with close to 100 million native speakers. Just in Germany alone, The World Factbook says there more than 81 million people, making Germany the sixteenth most populous nation in the world, uniquely equipping our German brothers and sisters to reach out to their neighbors in the EU in ways the rest of the YouVersion community simply cannot.
• German Speakers Worldwide. Of course, Germans are spread throughout the rest of the world, well beyond Germany’s borders. While millions live in places as far away as the United States or Russia, millions also live closer to home, like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. But a lot more people speak German than just Germans. In fact, German is the most widely spoken language of Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein. And some other nationalities who speak German as a second or third language include Luxembourgers, Dutch, Danes, and Slovenians—to name just a few—raising the popularity of the German language up to something more like 200 million speakers.

Now, for the first time ever, if German is your preferred language, no matter where you live, you can find the Bible App on all major mobile device platforms. Right in your pocket, you have instant access to the Bible translations of your choice, as well as to a whole host of tools designed to help you connect with God’s inspired Word every day—all in easy-to-understand German.

Welcome to our global YouVersion family! Even when we speak different languages, still we share the bonds of unity in Christ’s transforming love. We’re glad to join with you, and we can’t wait to hear your stories about how God’s Word is reshaping your heart, your life, and your world.