6 Ways You Can Use Language Skills To Make Money Online

6 Ways To Make Money Online With A Language Job

Everybody speaks at least one language, so why not make some money from it? There are a lot of different ways you can use language skills to make money online, whether you want to supplement your current income or even work towards earning a full-time salary. No matter if you’re a student, working professional, or retired, working online is a convenient and straightforward way to make some extra money. The best part is you only need an internet connection and some motivation!

1. Online Language Tutor

Becoming an online language tutor is easy, and you have full control of your schedule and how often you work. Best of all, you don’t need to learn any new skills right away since you’ll be speaking a language you already know!

This is the perfect gig to fill any blocks of free time you have throughout the week, and there is always a high demand from students on the weekends. Depending on where you choose to teach online, your lesson plans may or may not be provided by the company.

English is the most-learned language on the planet, so English tutors are especially in high demand. If you speak English fluently, there are a lot of different places to teach English online, so it’s definitely worth doing some research to find the company or platform that best fits your needs.

2. Freelance Translator

If you’re completely fluent in at least two languages, becoming a freelance translator online may be a job worth looking into. Whether you attend virtual meetings of international companies or translate corporate documents, translating online is a lucrative market.

Rates vary depending on which languages you’re able to translate, but no matter what language skills you have, you can always make more by specializing in certain industries. Overall, Chinese is the highest-paying language for translators.

If you don’t want to worry about finding your own clients, no worries! Working as a contractor with a company like
Appen lets you focus on translating without worrying about other admin tasks.

3. Freelance Writer

As online businesses become more globalized, the demand for content in multiple languages continues to grow. Because of this, writing articles in a language other than English can land you some high-paying writing jobs.

English, Russian, and Spanish are the most-used languages on the web, so there are a lot of writing jobs available if you can write in these languages. Since they’re the most common though, they’re also the most competitive languages. If you can write high-quality content in a lesser-used language, you’ll have your pick of writing gigs!

There are a lot of sites you can use to become a freelance writer, and you can get started right away.

4. Sell Original Content and Courses

If you want to generate passive income using your language skills, creating and selling original content and courses online may be the best route for you. This option usually requires a lot of work upfront, but can continue paying off for years to come.

Unlike marketing, technology, or business courses, language courses are considered “evergreen” because their content doesn’t need to be constantly updated. This is a definite advantage because you can create multiple courses without worrying about keeping each one up-to-date.

There are a lot of online platforms where you can sell your course, so find the best one for you. Udemy is by far the biggest platform for courses, and is a great place to start!

If you have some basic marketing savvy, creating your own website and selling your courses may also be an option. This will directly increase your earnings because you won’t have to pay any commissions to the platforms.

5. Start a Language Blog or YouTube Channel

Growing your own audience online can lead to a lot of different income opportunities, and this is no different in the language learning industry. If you grow your own audience using a language blog or YouTube channel, you can earn income through affiliate marketing, course creation, private tutoring, and even ad revenue.

If starting your own blog or channel sounds a little too time-intensive, you can also write blog articles about any topic you wish using Verblio. Your articles will appear all around the internet, and there are no deadlines or topic restrictions. What better way to earn money than writing about your favorite topics?

6. Score Standardized Tests

If you’re looking for temporary work throughout the year, scoring standardized language tests is another great option to earn money using your language skills. It’s a common practice in education to outsource the scoring of exams, so you can find a lot of these jobs by contacting universities, schools, or testing companies directly.

One of the biggest standardized testing companies is ETS, and they outsource grading for the language AP tests taken by US students every year. You can also work directly with companies like The Graide Network.

7. How To Get Started Making Money Online

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to put your language skills to use and start earning money online. These are 6 of the best ways to get started today, and you’ll discover more opportunities as you work in the language industry. If any of these jobs sound interesting, but your language skills aren’t quite where they need to be, there are a lot of useful apps to learn a language, and they can get you there in no time.

As you build more and more connections online, you can even consider turning your side hustle into a full-time job!

About the writer: Chad Emery is a writer at Langoly, an online resource to help people learn and teach languages more.

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