LINGUIST KEEPS FINGER ON PULSE OF POLYGLOT GLOBE.

Byline: David Greenberg Staff Writer

Irene Agnew could speak three languages by the time she was 10, and spent much of her adult life working as a translator.

But instead of thinking about retirement when she hit 60, Agnew set out on a new enterprise, founding Agnew Tech-II, a Westlake Village company that translates brochures, does voice-overs and creates Web sites and interactive programs in approximately 90 languages for customers worldwide.

``You get in contact with different cultures and different personalities,'' said Agnew, now 73. ``It keeps me young. It makes me feel good (when) I can establish perfect communication with people - if you're able to bridge that gap.''

The 13-year-old company is an offshoot of her first firm, Agnew Tech-Tran, which translated mostly printed materials from 1974 through 1984, when it was bought out by the Berlitz language school chain.

Agnew Tech-II was formed two years later with three employees. It has since blossomed to 13 staff members and more than 200 free-lance linguists - all laboring over sophisticated computer and recording equipment.

Agnew's life spanned a fair portion of the globe long before she entered the workplace, however.

She was born in Harbin, China, of Russian parents who had fled the 1917 revolution in their homeland.

Her father worked as a film processor for a movie studio that was sold to a Japanese firm in 1931, and the family followed the company's path. Over the next decade, Agnew learned Japanese while speaking Russian with her parents at home.

And during the last six months in Japan, she enrolled at the Canadian Academy to learn English.

Her timing was perfect, as her family was about to flee the Imperialist uprising, landing in Hollywood in 1941, just before the Pearl Harbor bombing.

``We wanted to come to the United States to have some stability in life,'' Agnew said. ``As white Russians, we didn't have any real citizenship. We were at the mercy of whatever country we were living in.''

Agnew's father continued his career as a film processor for several American studios while her mother taught ballet to a young Natalie Wood and Liza Minelli.

Agnew enrolled in Hollywood High School, where she said one of her schoolmates was an aspiring actress named Norma Jean Baker, who later reinvented herself as Marilyn Monroe.

A mutual friend introduced Agnew to her future husband, James McBirney Agnew, who had expressed an interest in learning Russian. They married and had three children.

Over the years, Irene Agnew worked as a free-lance translator for several companies and also translated foreign magazines and newspapers for Rand Corp.

She also spent a year with her ear to a radio, translating Russian radio broadcasts for the Foreign Broadcast Information System - now part of the State Department - during the early years of the Cold War.

``I liked working for the government and doing something that would help,'' Agnew said.

Agnew also has found a similar gratification in continuing to use her language skills, which now include Spanish.

``When you have so much experience and you enjoy it, then you don't want to let it go,'' she said. ``I wouldn't work this hard just for money. I feel I'm in touch with the whole world without going there.''