Growing up as a millennial child in the 90s in Kenya, we were often smacked with the mundane question of what we would like to be when we grew up.

Usually, our choices lay among the trophy ‘Big five’ careers – Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Engineer and Lawyer even with our limited understanding of what the careers entailed.

We only desired those because the society preconditioned our naïve unfolded minds that those were the only options that would give us a seat at the table of men. What an unfounded lie!

Then enter the millennium, the sky shifted. Change arrived. Telecommunications company were setting up in the country, the mobile phone became widespread, and the internet introduced us to a whole new world at the touch of a button.

Years later from 2007, social media became a craze through Facebook and suddenly we could now connect with people from around the world.

Kenya equally became Africa’s diplomacy hub that saw many International Organisations set up including the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), the UN headquarters in Africa, which was established by the General Assembly in 1996.

With this growth, there was a growing silent demand of professionals in niche careers such as interpreters, translators, localization experts, tour guides and conference rapporteurs.

These niche areas require professionals with expertise in at least two International Languages.

Often confused as the other, translators work with written documents while interpreters work with the spoken language.

To date, with increased international conferences taking place in Nairobi, interpreters and translators are always in high demand to bridge the language gap in these meetings.

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Last year, the Africa Climate Summit that took place in Nairobi had over 50 interpreters working in the meeting to offer seamless communication to the delegates in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Opportunities you will access with a foreign language

Interpreters are some of the highest paid professionals in the world with an average pay of USD 400-600 per working day. For travel lovers, this is also a profession with numerous travel opportunities regionally and internationally.

Locally, in courts, interpreters are needed to assist communication in the prosecution cases of foreigners who are not anglophones.

Translators are often needed to convert reports to another language while retaining the original meaning.

They often translate reports and documents in a wide range of sectors including Medicine, Tourism, Education, Telecommunication, Agriculture, Drug Abuse, Adolescence, Governance and Regional Integration.

Rapporteurs are the brains behind all conference reports in workshops and conferences.

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They collect data in the proceedings and craft intricate high level reports that serve as the outcome documents of the meetings.

Tour guides who speak foreign languages such as French, German, Portuguese and Spanish are regularly contracted to offer their services to the international tourists that dock in Kenya annually.

These niche careers serve as evidence of the power of being multilingual. If you have a knack for learning new languages and often wonder what opportunities can be availed to you, you may consider being a multilingual connoisseur.

To echo the words of Federico Fellini, ‘A different language is a different vision of life.’