At what Age...

[2 of 10]

In Trek, at times child characters, Naomi, Mezoti...ect talking to other crew members, which would imply that they already have universal translators, I have seen UT's as implants. DS-9 episode Little Green Men, and have also seen them as part of their comm badges, (however I may be mistaken on that, you lose you badge and you're out of luck communicating with anyone). Since Namoi does not have a comm badge, I would suppose that she has the implant. At what age to you suppose they have UT implanted, also is there a learning curve to use the UT ???

 

[Finn]

Mezoti was once connected to the collective so she would know English already.

A stretch perhaps but....

 

[Timo]

(however I may be mistaken on that, you lose you badge and you're out of luck communicating with anyone)

Not really. In "Basics", removal of the badges prevented our heroes from learning the language of the natives - but the heroes could still talk to each other just fine. And even if we assume that the heroes all spoke fluent English, including Neelix and Kes, we also witnessed them conversing with the Kazon.

So it might be reasonable to argue that the implant UTs can handle any already known language (or at least a large set of known languages), while the badge UTs are "extension packages" that allow the processing and learning of new languages.

Perhaps the UT implants are given during the very first days in an infant's life already? That's when he or she would be nicely within the reach of the required medical facilities, at least...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Toban Kal]

well we saw in the DS9 episode "little Green Men" Quark and co. couldn't communicate with the earht men until the UT in their ears was reactivated. Then Quark could understand the americans and vice versa, it indicates that only one person needs a UT or at least needs to be in proximity to one.
since all crewmembers have UT's built into their com badges the kids are near enough at all times to always have a UT workig for them.