I actually recall a scene in Babylon 5 when Delenn and co. are meeting the Drakh for the first time and communication comes in- not in Interlac, but in Minbari- with the whole scene presented in English just as if it had been dubbed for us. Of course, the fact that the Drakh- in a supposed first-contact situation- already speak Minbari is cause for some concern...
There's also the Doctor Who approach- the TARDIS adjusts your neural centers so you speak and hear all local languages as if they were your own, transparently. This came up in the Tom Baker era. Sarah Jane Smith was the companion if I recall correctly, so we're talking mid-'70s. Kind of like a Babelfish without the fish.
As for languages spoken by others... If it's made obvious that translation is being done on the part of the speaker and the result is stilted and awkward English, I always presume that they're circumlocuting in a language not their own- Deus knows I've done that enough times in Spanish. But indeed, Earth languages are riddled with words that are constructed from words that describe what things do- "windshield" in Spanish is "parabrisas", or literally "thing that stops breezes". Constructing new words that way makes more sense in some languages than others...
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There's also the Doctor Who approach- the TARDIS adjusts your neural centers so you speak and hear all local languages as if they were your own, transparently. This came up in the Tom Baker era. Sarah Jane Smith was the companion if I recall correctly, so we're talking mid-'70s. Kind of like a Babelfish without the fish.
As for languages spoken by others... If it's made obvious that translation is being done on the part of the speaker and the result is stilted and awkward English, I always presume that they're circumlocuting in a language not their own- Deus knows I've done that enough times in Spanish. But indeed, Earth languages are riddled with words that are constructed from words that describe what things do- "windshield" in Spanish is "parabrisas", or literally "thing that stops breezes". Constructing new words that way makes more sense in some languages than others...