During espionage or improvised boarding...

[Lt. LaForge]

How do certain people get away with not being able to speak a particular language?

For example, when Troi was kidnapped onto a Warbird by a Romulan faction and physically altered to look like one of them, couldn't they tell from her lip movement and accent that she wasn't one of them?

When Kirk beams aboard a...you guessed it...Romulan Warbird, he too was altered (by friendly hands) and yet the Romulan centurions he encountered were fooled into thinking he was one of them despite standing right next to him and hearing him speak.

I know about the Universal translator, but even it can't compensate for mouth movement. I mean, imagine someone is talking to you and their mouth movement never matches their words.

I am the kind of guy who is willing to suspend belief for Start Trek, but this really gets to me. Any explanations will be appreciated.

 

[Count Zero]

Well, the UT works kinda like magic, it seems. You really think people are talking in your language. All those different aliens aboard Starfleet ships or aboard stations like DS9 probably don't speak the same language, either, and yet, the mouth movement corresponds to English (or other languages the show is dubbed in). I suppose, not all Romulans speak the same language so they also use the UT and therefore it worked out for Kirk and Troi.

 

[T'Girl]

it depends on how the UT actually works. I figure something like this, you think of what you want to say, the UT picks up your "brainwaves" (whatever), the translator repeats it back to you quietly in your ear, you repeat what you just heard out loud.

With a bit of practice you can do this in realtime. Think, listen, repeat.

In the episode Little green Men, it's made clear that Quark doesn't speak a single word of English, yet after "adjusting" his UT, he can converse with the people around him in English. People without a UT of their own can understand what Quark in saying because Quark is speaking a language that he doesn't understand, he is just repeating what the translator is providing him with.

My opinion only.

 

[Timo]

I mean, imagine someone is talking to you and their mouth movement never matches their words.

I think "imagine" is indeed the keyword. Our brain is capable of amazing self-deception, and probably wouldn't need much extra prompting to ignore such minor things.

I mean, we can already watch television and accept it as a "stream of events" even though the camera angles, cuts and transitions make it completely unlike any natural stream of events we would have witnessed with our "unassisted" eyes. If the UT tickles the brain appropriately to make it ignore otherwise disturbing imperfections, Kirk or Troi can waltz in easily enough.

...Assuming that everybody in the Trek universe constantly uses a UT. Which probably is true. Whether the UT would somehow signal the user that it is translating a foreign language rather than allowing the user's native language to flow in unaltered from the person currently speaking is the interesting question. And I don't think anybody would put up with a UT that constantly did such signaling. Most languages in a Trek environment are going to be foreign; the user would go crazy having to receive special signals indicating translation in progress.

It is a bit difficult to accept, though, that the crew of a Romulan warship would have turned their "translation in progress" signals off, as that environment is likely to be completely homogeneous, with no foreign languages spoken...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lt. LaForge]

Well, the UT works kinda like magic, it seems. You really think people are talking in your language. All those different aliens aboard Starfleet ships or aboard stations like DS9 probably don't speak the same language, either, and yet, the mouth movement corresponds to English (or other languages the show is dubbed in).

Yes, they actors speak in English for our benefit. However, in universe, the mouth movement surely can't change quick enough. Surely not...

 

[Lt. LaForge]

I mean, we can already watch television and accept it as a "stream of events" even though the camera angles, cuts and transitions make it completely unlike any natural stream of events we would have witnessed with our "unassisted" eyes.

Yeah, I'm used to ignoring that, hehe.

...Assuming that everybody in the Trek universe constantly uses a UT. Which probably is true. Whether the UT would somehow signal the user that it is translating a foreign language rather than allowing the user's native language to flow in unaltered from the person currently speaking is the interesting question. And I don't think anybody would put up with a UT that constantly did such signaling. Most languages in a Trek environment are going to be foreign; the user would go crazy having to receive special signals indicating translation in progress.

The way I see it, if I encountered an Acamarian; whenever she speaks, my UT would translate her words to a language of my choosing without us needing to tell each other what languages we use (given that my language is configured into her UT and vice-versa). I suppose a hearing aid is required, but isn't shown because it isn't TV friendly.

It is a bit difficult to accept, though, that the crew of a Romulan warship would have turned their "translation in progress" signals off, as that environment is likely to be completely homogeneous, with no foreign languages spoken...

Timo Saloniemi

Not only is it difficult for me, I find myself failing to take such occurrences seriously...
Great post mate.

 

[Lt. LaForge]

it depends on how the UT actually works. I figure something like this, you think of what you want to say, the UT picks up your "brainwaves" (whatever), the translator repeats it back to you quietly in your ear, you repeat what you just heard out loud.

With a bit of practice you can do this in realtime. Think, listen, repeat.

You have wonderful imagination...better than mine (and I pride myself on being imaginative ), but that's a bit far fetched, don't you think? Let's apply the same principle to Chinese. I can't, for the life of me, imagine (I guess I'm not as imaginative as I thought) myself repeating a Chinese mans words without it coming off as gibberish.

In the episode Little green Men, it's made clear that Quark doesn't speak a single word of English, yet after "adjusting" his UT, he can converse with the people around him in English. People without a UT of their own can understand what Quark in saying because Quark is speaking a language that he doesn't understand, he is just repeating what the translator is providing him with.

My opinion only.

Let's say Quark beams down to earth and speaks to me using his UT, I know that I'll be able to understand him...but I'll know that he's using another language, while his UT translates it for my benefit, in turn translating what I say for his.

What do you think, T'Girl? I hope I haven't come across as pedantic...

 

[Unionized Elf]

The UT is considerate enough to even translate mouth movements. Remember the Japanese guy in The 37s? He comment that everyone was speaking Japanese, and presumably so was he, yet his mouth moved in English anyway.

 

[R. Star]

Ironically the only series to even attempt to address the absurdity of this was Enterprise. For all it's other flaws, I did like that they didn't assume that every alien in the universe magically spoke English.

 

[Timo]

Let's not forget that translation of lip movements is no more absurd than translation of voice. After all, the UT worn by Quark allowed him to "emit" both the voice and the lip movements to a diverse crowd that included English speakers, Odo and fellow Ferengi. And both English and Japanese speakers lacking UTs were "receiving" their native tongue from the UT-equipped VOY heroes.

Anybody speaking "out" through a UT thus is supposedly speaking in multiple languages at once. This isn't physically possible, but it isn't any more impossible than the moving of lips according to the diverse expectations of the crowd.

Clearly, then, the UT does its magic at both ends of the process, and tailors the exchanges to fit all the relevant sender-receiver pairs simultaneously. If we can figure out how it does that with the voices, the lip movements automatically follow, and vice versa: it can never be anything as simplistic as loudspeakers and microphones with the voice, so we shouldn't evaluate the lip movement problem on simplistic grounds, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[neozeks]

I think the simplest explanation would be that the UT taps directly into your brain, acting as an expansion of your natural language centers, enabling you to both understand and SPEAK other languages as if you learned them the hard way. It's a bit too cyborg-y for Star Trek but I think it's the only explanation that matches all the things we saw on the screen. I mean, forget the Romulans, how else do you explain our heroes' ability to talk perfectly to pre-warp aliens that have no UTs and aren't even aware that our heroes are from another species and that other species even exist (which has happened several times, and not always in preplanned conditions)?

 

[T'Girl]

Let's say Quark beams down to earth and speaks to me using his UT, I know that I'll be able to understand him...but I'll know that he's using another language, while his UT translates it for my benefit, in turn translating what I say for his.

Okay if Quark has a UT, and you don't.

Little Green Men established that Quark speaks no English, how can you, with no UT, understand him? As Quark speaks to you in Feregar, what is speaking to you in English? The little thing in his ear?

 

[R. Star]

Let's say Quark beams down to earth and speaks to me using his UT, I know that I'll be able to understand him...but I'll know that he's using another language, while his UT translates it for my benefit, in turn translating what I say for his.

Okay if Quark has a UT, and you don't.

Little Green Men established that Quark speaks no English, how can you, with no UT, understand him? As Quark speaks to you in Feregar, what is speaking to you in English? The little thing in his ear?

The UT makes the user speak English! If Worf can fight a battle for Quark in his body, surely the UT can translate mouth movements and sounds? Right...?

 

[Drago-Kazov]

We really need an Universal Translator Malfunction.

I don't remember happening in the big screen and the small screen or even in the comics.

 

[sbk1234]

WHat most people don't realize is that the spoken Romulan language actually is identical to English in every way.

 

[Unionized Elf]

Ironically the only series to even attempt to address the absurdity of this was Enterprise. For all it's other flaws, I did like that they didn't assume that every alien in the universe magically spoke English.

Maybe in the first season, but as the series went on, English began being adopted as the universal language. The Xindi council spoke in English during their sessions when no humans were present. Well, okay, the Aquatics and Insectoids didn't.

One thing I found odd was the episode Carbon Creek, an episode which features T'Pol's great-grandmother on a Vulcan survey mission checking out Earth after Sputnik was launched. They end up crashing in the US and can instantly speak English. But their only knowledge of Earth at this point comes from a Soviet probe. Shouldn't they be speaking Russian instead?

 

[Timo]

I don't think alien-to-alien interaction counts - having Xindianeseish being "portrayed" by English is a valid dramatic device that tells us nothing about whether Archer would understand what these assorted Xindi are saying. It's not as if Archer ever comprehends any Xindi talk that isn't specifically aimed at him (and thus no doubt spoken in English, either because the spokesxindi learned the language, or because the spokesxindi has a UT installed).

The Vulcans spying on Earth didn't stumble on the planet - they were sent on a mission that was part of an ongoing survey project, quite possibly the 182nd such mission in a row. No doubt they were well versed in Mandarin, Urdu, Spanish and some minority languages such as Russian and English, either by having studied the languages, or by having had their UTs upgraded.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Where is the UT anyway? In your ear? Wouldn't that be difficult for the Ferengi?

 

[Timo]

The Ferengi explicitly have it in the ear, or accessed through the ear anyway ("Little Green Men").

An implant somewhere along the nerve paths that move information from the sensing organs to the parts of the brain dealing with language would appear the logical solution. The deeper, the better, so that there won't be need to have two implants to separately deal with visual and auditory information.

Timo Saloniemi