By HARRY EAGER, staff writer, July 31, 2000

Haiku - When free-lance translator Chelsea Hill was thinking of moving her business, then called Movimento Communications, onto the Internet, she went to a workshop sponsored by the University of Hawaii Small Business Development Center.

Presenter Randolph Craft asked the attendees what business ideas they had. Hill explained that she was qualified and experienced in translating into French and Italian at all levels and was thinking of using the Internet to reach her clients.

Hill recalls, "He told me, you're thinking of starting a job, not a business."

She continues: "That pushed me to stop holding back."

As a result Hill in now operating Origin - The Language Agency from her Haiku home, with more than 100 qualified translators all over the world. According to David Fisher of the Small Business Development Center, Origin has more significance than just one Canadian enjoying personal success from Maui. Hill's idea of combining native speaker translating services with the Internet opens up new opportunities for small businesses to venture into global markets.

Fisher says he had lots of inquiries from small business operators about whether they should go for international sales. "Up until recently," he says, "I would say, 'Probably not.'"

In many cases, the language problem made globalization unrealistic, even dangerous strategy for small businesses. But with Origin, the language barrier can be breached. Even, says Fisher, the problem of translating English into English.

The Internet is predominantly in English, but the American sites use "a lot of jargon," and it may be necessary to translate into understandable English. Also, there are many Englishes around the world.

In any case, says Fisher, with Origin, he can go online and get a menu translated, or double check the words he is getting ready to use in making a presentation.

In fact, says Hill, her translators can "provide interpretation at any level," up to and including simultaneous translations at international conferences.

"She resists a little at labeling her venture a "virtual" company, because all the translators are "real people."

And, typically, they go to the place where the language is being spoken. Rarely would they try to translate remotely via telecommunications. "Transterpreting" in chatrooms is "not used very often," says Hill. (Spoken words are interpreted; written documents are translated.) The key feature in Hill's service is behind the name Origin - the translator Origin provides will always be a native speaker of the target language, the one being translating into.

(The cybername, origin.to, is a little unusual. Origin.com and origin.org were already taken. The designator .to is Tonga. Hill says the unfamiliar suffix doesn't seem to have bothered anybody.) Hill herself had been interpreting into French and Italian since 1992, traveling to Italy, Canada, French Polynesia and France for assignments, as well as here in the United States.

She was trained at McGill University, Istituto di Cultura Italiana in Bologna and the Lycée Canadien en France in Nice.

When she decided to go global, she called on her friends to sign up as interpreters.

Financing was "bootstrapped." In operation about a year and a half now, Origin - The Language Agency is not entirely a cyberbusiness.

Hill recently opened an office in London and is preparing to open another in Seattle.

Marketing is largely repeat business and referrals from satisfied customers.

Origin's hundred or so translators can work in about 35 languages, including pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English), although nobody has asked for that one yet.

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