We’re making Swahili interpretation services accessible with our skilled team.

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Most indigenous African languages don’t register on the global radar, with the majority of people outside Africa unaware of any more than a handful. But if there’s one indigenous African language you’ve likely heard of, it’s Swahili. Thanks largely to concerted efforts from the Tanzanian government, Swahili has risen up as a lingua franca in East Africa and is widely spoken alongside colonial languages in the region. People in East Africa may also learn English—but Swahili tends to hit closer to home.

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At TranslationServices.com, we want to make sure anyone in need of Swahili interpretation services is well served, so we went out and formed a team of interpreters from across East Africa. Our team members, boasting great knowledge and expertise in the art of interpreting Swahili, hail from Tanzania, Kenya, Comoros, Mayotte, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Bajuni Islands, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar, and elsewhere. What they share is a passion for their language and eagerness to help you communicate with Swahili speakers.

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Reach out today if you’d like to get a free quote for our professional Swahili interpretation services!

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Swahili: Africa’s most famous indigenous language

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Given Swahili’s prominence, it may surprise you to learn that the well-reputed African tongue boasts a mere 20 million native speakers. Most speakers of Swahili are second-language learners, numbering more than 60 million for a total of around 80 million Swahili speakers. Swahili is widely used as a lingua franca in the African Great Lakes region, particularly in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it’s the biggest language of the expansive Bantu family.

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If you’re thinking about learning Swahili to talk to locals in East Africa, you should know that it’s not an easy language. The subject-verb-object word order is easy for an English speaker, but the language’s highly agglutinative nature, stacking long strings of prefixes onto words, certainly isn’t. The most daunting aspect of Swahili, however, is its extensive noun class system. Imagine the grammatical gender you know from French or Spanish, except that there are 18 genders, and adjectives, verbs, and demonstratives alike must be marked to agree with the gender. That’s Swahili.

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We offer our Swahili interpretation services far and wide, online and offline.

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Are you in Tanzania? Kenya? Uganda? Rwanda? The Democratic Republic of the Congo? Somewhere else in Africa? Or perhaps somewhere outside Africa? No matter where you are, you can access our Swahili interpretation services.

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Some clients prefer our in-person interpretation services because they like the more personable interaction with their interpreter and don’t have to worry about technical issues, especially in parts of the world where the internet connection isn’t always stable. With Swahili interpreters all over East Africa, we can send someone out to meet you anywhere in the area. Should you be located elsewhere, and we don’t have someone local, we can even fly an interpreter out (although you’ll be expected to cover their expenses).

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Other clients prefer our online Swahili interpretation services for the convenience of accessing high-quality Swahili interpretation from wherever they are. It’s quick, simple, and convenient: just add our team member to your call (Zoom, Skype, a conference call on your phone—whatever you want), and they can interpret between Swahili and English for your meeting, interview, conference, or other conversation.

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How to know whether to choose simultaneous or consecutive interpretation services

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Whether simultaneous or consecutive Swahili interpretation services are better for your purposes is up to you to decide, although we’re happy to offer our advice if asked. Here are the key differences.

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Simultaneous interpretation services feature the original speaker and the interpreter speaking at the same time, with a natural delay of a few seconds as the interpreter listens to the speaker and translates their words in real time. For presentations or speeches, which require flowing, uninterrupted speech, this is ideal. It also works well for large conferences with many participants speaking various languages, with different interpreters serving the speakers of each language.

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For consecutive interpretation services, one speaker says a sentence or two, pauses as the interpreter translates the information, and then either continues or allows the other party to respond. This is a good method for smaller conversations with a lot of back-and-forth, such as small business meetings or personal interviews. The interpreter has more time to digest the information and consider their translation, and they can easily ask the speaker for clarification if something is unclear, so it’s often a more accurate form of interpretation.

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No subject matter is too technical for our Swahili interpretation experts.

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Would a Swahili speaker require a specialized degree to understand the language in your meeting, conference, presentation, or interview? Our team is full of Swahili interpreters with specialized degrees in a range of fields, so that’s not a problem. If you need an interpreter with specialized knowledge in a particular discipline, you need only inform us—we’ll take care of the rest.

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Whether you’re in East Africa or anywhere else in the world, we make it easy to access reliable Swahili interpretation services. Get in contact today to discuss your needs in more detail!