I have a question about the Star Trek characters Spock and B'Elanna Torres?

[Christopher]

You can't necessarily count 20th/21st century characters saying that they hear English if they themselves speak English, because of the translator.

That's overthinking it. As I said, the idea of the translators being constantly engaged aboard ship is a modern (and extremely stupid) retcon that was never suggested or intended in TOS. The writers had them say they spoke English because they bloody well spoke English. Arguments should be based on the evidence. Choosing to invent some imaginary theory in conflict with the evidence and claiming that the evidence is deceptive because it doesn't fit the imaginary theory is circular logic.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I'm not saying that it was intended or suggested in TOS that the translator was always on. I'm just saying that "You speak English" doesn't prove that someone is speaking English when there is a device on board that translates other languages into English.

Granted we weren't told about Starfleet's universal translator until season 2, but the need for one was made clear in season 1's Arena. That episode came right before the Enterprise started actually visiting new civilisations that weren't parallel Americans or godlike telepaths in Return of the Archons and A Taste of Armageddon, so the question of 'How do they understand each other?' had been answered.

Anyway, I don't even think they were running a translator on the ship all the time, I'm on team 'Everyone In Starfleet Speaks Federation English'.

The real question is... did Neelix ever learn English? (Kes probably mastered it in an afternoon).

 

[Christopher]

I'm not saying that it was intended or suggested in TOS that the translator was always on. I'm just saying that "You speak English" doesn't prove that someone is speaking English when there is a device on board that translates other languages into English.

"You can't disprove it" is not evidence that it's true. That's backward reasoning. If the evidence shows that they're speaking English, the burden of proof is on the person claiming they aren't.