<P> The episode "Metamorphosis" was the only time in which the device was actually seen . In the episode "Arena" the Metrons supply Captain Kirk and the Gorn commander with a Translator - Communicator, allowing conversation between them to be possible . During Kirk's era, they were also apparently less perfect in their translations into Klingon . In the sixth Star Trek film, the characters are seen relying on print books in order to communicate with a Klingon military ship, since Chekov said that the Klingons would recognize the use of a Translator . Actress Nichelle Nichols reportedly protested this scene, as she felt that Uhura, as communications officer during what was effectively a cold war, would be trained in fluent Klingon to aid in such situations . In that same movie during the trial scene of Kirk and McCoy before a Klingon judiciary, the Captain and the Doctor are holding communication devices while a Klingon (played by Todd Bryant) translates for them . The novelization of that movie provided a different reason for the use of books: sabotage by somebody working on the Starfleet side of the conspiracy uncovered by the crew in the story, but the novelization is not part of the Star Trek canon . </P> <P> By the 24th century, universal translators are built into the communicator pins worn by Starfleet personnel, although there were instances when crew members (such as Riker in the Next Generation episode "First Contact") spoke to newly encountered aliens even when deprived of their communicators . In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The 37's" the device apparently works among intra-species languages as well; after the Voyager crew discovers and revives eight humans abducted in 1937 (including Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan) and held in stasis since then, a Japanese Army officer expresses surprise that an Ohio farmer is apparently speaking Japanese, while the farmer is equally surprised to hear the soldier speaking English (the audience hears them all speaking English only, however). Certain Starfleet programs, such as the Emergency Medical Hologram, have universal translators encoded into the programming . </P> <P> The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual says that the universal translator is an "extremely sophisticated computer program" which functions by "analyzing the patterns" of an unknown foreign language, starting from a speech sample of two or more speakers in conversation . The more extensive the conversational sample, the more accurate and reliable is the "translation matrix", enabling instantaneous conversion of verbal utterances or written text between the alien language and American English / Federation Standard . </P> <P> In some episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, we see a Cardassian universal translator at work . It takes some time to process an alien language, whose speakers are initially not understandable but as they continue speaking, the computer gradually learns their language and renders it into Standard English (also known as Federation Standard). </P>

How does the star trek universal translator work
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