Today, I’m excited to share with you 5 more ways to make money online with your Swahili native language skills.
This list applies to any other language for that matter that you’re fluent in.
Some skills you’d need to effectively deliver on your remote job include:
- Native or Near Native Fluency in target/source languages and Swahili
- Great customer service and communication skills, clear enunciation, and pronunciation
- Ability to explain certain cultural concepts to avoid miscommunication
- Understanding protocol and terminology in high profile industries such as medical, insurance, finance, legal, etc. is definitely an added advantage.
What's Covered in This Article
Make money online Swahili language teacher/tutor
With your Swahili language skills, you can make money online teaching Swahili remotely.
This you can do via free online channels like Zoom, etc,; via your own web platform, via freelancing platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, etc. or via language learning platforms suc as italki. You can also design your own online Swahili course via online course platforms such as Teachable, Thinkific, etc.
Make money online as a Swahili SRT creator/ translator/Subtitle creator
To ensure their videos and audios are as inclusive and easily consumable for a wider audience as possible, video/audio creators are increasingly including subtitles in their videos.
An easy solution to adding subtitles to video is an SRT file (also known as a SubRip Subtitle file).
An SRT file is a plain-text file that contains information regarding the video/audio’s subtitles, start and end time stamps of the text to ensure your subtitles match the audio, any music, and the sequential number of subtitles.
As a Swahili SRT/Subtitle creator, your job will basically entail transcribing videos or audios from voice into Swahili Script.
Take advantage of free online tools such as DownSub.
DownSub is a FREE web application through which you can download subtitles/captions directly from Youtube, VIU, Viki, Vlive, etc. in different formats such as: SRT, TXT, VTT and in multiple languages.
Once you’ve downloaded the script, go through it for any possible errors.
The advantage of DownSub is that users don’t have to download or install any type of extensions or third party software. You simply download your video’s subtitles by entering the URL of the video and clicking Download. Easy peasy.
For more free online tools that you can use to make money online without paying any money, check out the video below:
Remote Swahili translator
As a Swahili speaking translator, you will essentially be translating written text from source language into Swahili, or vice versa.
Potential work would include: email messages, web pages, marketing copy, civic education, etc.
The key skills required of you as a remote Swahili language translator is the ability to understand the source language and the culture of the population where the text originated, and then rendering that material clearly and accurately into the target language.
However, the most critical mark of a good translator is their ability to write well in the target language.
Understanding protocol and terminology in high profile industries such as medical, insurance, finance, legal, etc. is definitely an added advantage and will definitely fetch you more money online.
For more opportunities, think outside the box for example you can translate English to Swahili for app developers, etc.
Make money online as a remote Swahili interpreter
The nature of the work you’d do as a remote Swahili telephone interpreter involves interpreting spoken words, while rendering meaning to conversations on the consecutive mode of interpretation between speakers of Swahili and target languages e.g. English, French, etc.
As a Swahili speaking interpreter, your fundamental job will be paraphrasing a speaker’s words from the source language, grasping the content of the message, and then paraphrasing your understanding of the meaning using the tools of the target language.
To succeed as a Swahili language interpreter, you will need to be capable of processing information quickly and concisely and render correct concepts and meanings between Swahili and the target/source languages while upholding the correct rules for grammar and syntax in both languages.
As an interpreter therefore, your expert knowledge of the subject matter is equally as important as your interpreting experience.
Understanding protocol and terminology in high profile industries such as medical, insurance, finance, legal, etc. is definitely an added advantage and will definitely fetch you more money online.
To succeed in this work, you’re going to need the following skills:
- Thorough knowledge of the general subject to be interpreted
- Intimate familiarity with both source and target language cultures
- Extensive vocabulary in both languages
- Ability to express thoughts clearly and concisely in both languages
- Excellent note-taking techniques for consecutive interpreting
- Experience for simultaneous interpreting
Make money online as a remote Swahili language counselor
Due to the Covid pandemic, the need has increased for regular conversations and counseling to both Covid patients and their families, staff, etc., as well as to service delivery providers who work with high trauma situations.
Due to the transmission nature of the disease, remote counseling sessions is the preferred way to go.
As a remote counselor, you can make money online using both your Swahili language and counseling skills to conduct remote sessions with groups and individuals.
A good place to start looking for work is with refugee organizations, Gender-Based Violence response teams, hospitals, large organizations, governments, etc.
Make money online as a remote mentor
Mentorship essentially involves guiding and nurturing, especially a lesser experienced and/or knowledgeable person within a certain field, where the mentor usually has more experience, knowledge, and connections, that they’re able to pass along to the mentee.
As a remote mentor, you can make money online using both your Swahili language and mentorship skills to conduct remote mentoring sessions with both groups and individuals.
This you can do via free online channels like Zoom, etc,; via your own web platform, via freelancing platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, etc. or contact organizations directly, or wait to be found by marketing your services through your personal website or platforms such as LinkedIn.
The Refugee Employment and Skills Initiative (RESI), an ITC project focused on training refugees and host community members in Dadaab, Kenya in online freelancing and providing them with market access support, for example was recently looking for Swahili speaking remote mentors.
To succeed in this work, you’re going to need experience in mentoring others.
Make money online as a Swahili proofreader
As a native Swahili linguist, you can make money online using both your Swahili language and proofreading skills to help organizations and individuals to proofread original texts or translations.
As a Swahili speaking proofreader, your core work is to ensure that content is free of typographical, grammatical, spelling, punctuation, syntax, formatting and other such errors.
You can look for freelance Swahili proof reader jobs via freelancing platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, etc., contact organizations directly, or wait to be found by marketing your services through your personal website or platforms such as LinkedIn.
Make money online as a Swahili voice over artist
As a Swahili speaking voice over artist, you can make money online using your voice in radio, TV, film, theatre and other presentations.
Your work as a Voice-over Artist is be all unseen and only heard.
To succeed in your work as a voice over artist, you will need to have a pleasant and professional voice as well as native or near native fluency in Swahili.
The different ways you can make money online as a Swahili speaking Voice-over Artist include:
- Swahili commercials
- Swahili documentaries or narratives
- Swahili language promotional or corporate work
- Swahili radio dramas
- Swahili narration of productions, etc.
Make money online as a Swahili SRT creation translator
As a Swahili speaking voice over artist, you can also make money online by syncing the voice overdone to a source video and creating the SRT for the same script which is used for the voice over.
his you can do by looking for Swahili SRT creation translator jobs via freelancing platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, etc., contact organizations and individuals directly, or wait to be found by marketing your services through your personal website or platforms such as LinkedIn.
Make money online as a Swahili telephone interpreter
Similar to remote Swahili Interpreter work above, the nature of work you’d do as a Swahili telephone interpreter involves handling phone calls on demand or by appointment, rendering meaning to conversations on the consecutive mode of interpretation between speakers of Swahili and target/source languages e.g. English, French, etc.
Make money online giving feedback in Swahili
You will most likely make money online with your Swahili language skills by participating in surveys (e.g. for videos) and give constructive feedback in Swahili.
Make money online as a Swahili speaking graphic designer for publication layouts
Use your Swahili and graphic design skills to do make money online designing publications in the Swahili language.
As a graphic designer, you will tasked with jobs such as placing the Swahili text into the design file, converting the publications into print and web ready versions, etc.
To be successful with this kind of work, you’ll need to be fluent in both Swahili and source/target language.
