Depends how "alien" you want to make these aliens, but I think some sort of psychic ability that allows them to speak any language fluently (i.e. their brain computes what they want to say in their own language, and this power translates it into whatever language when it is spoken), is more than reasonable. They are aliens, after all.
For the first question: It would get pretty annoying if you did too much for too long, especially with no explanation of what they are saying. 2nd Question: That could work. I mean, its a civilization that has managed to travel light years in less than a single life span, so its not surprising that they could learn English quickly.
This. Assume that if they are going to go through all the trouble, the staggering financial investment needed to make such a journey (no one ever thinks about the economics of space travel, I swear) and their intentions aren't just to eradicate whatever they find on the habitable planets they encounter, they are very probably going to have put some thought into how to communicate with other beings able to communicate. I'm not saying that they are automatically going to be ready to receive our Earthly languages, but there is going to be someone or a number of someones on that ship whose sole primary function is to try and make communication happen. There will be linguists.
Awww ...there's only one answer here, and it's been done. Translator Microbes. Injected at Birth. (Farscape...)
A standard solution for this situation was developed by Drake (I believe). An alien uses hypnotic teacher every night, and practices every day. He arrives to Earth with "working" language and improves fast.
I remember that Anne McCaffney had some of her Alien characters (in an Acorna book) learn English by snatching a human and going through the human's mind when she was dreaming. I can't remember if they used a computer for that. Maybe some unique twist on this example would work.
I would struggle not only with the idea of aliens learning English quickly, but with the idea of aliens having vocal chords that could make human speech sounds. I'd be inclined to have them produce speech mechanically with some sort of small device. Of course, that doesn't solve your original problem of how they have the knowledge to produce the speech in the first place. It's a comedy, but I seem to recall that the natural speech of the aliens in Galaxy Quest was a sort of water-mammal squealing, too alien from human speech for anyone to even consider trying to present it as words.
If aliens are smart enough to build ships that can travel light years to Earth, I'm pretty sure they could come up with some kind of language translator they could wear without having to actually learn the language.
Mind you, they still have to learn the pronunciation and grammar to program a computer, but I'm with you on this. If they can travel to other worlds all the while avoiding the hazards of deep space (black holes, asteroids, etc), then they must have advanced enough technology to build a computer capable of translating language.
Since we are constantly putting out instructional text and videos and sound recordings in an effort to teach each other various languages, I don't see why the aliens would have any trouble gathering enough information in minutes for a really advanced computer to analyse and translate our languages. The only problem might be if the aliens use a different form of communication entirely - telepathy, skin patterns, colours, scents and so on. They might be so different that they would not recognise speech and the written word as communication.
Read Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, which can be read online: http://www.ime.usp.br/~jstern/miscellanea/General/Chiang98.pdf
I don't agree. We know lower life on our world communicates in forms other than speech, so I don't think it unreasonable to assume an intelligent life from another world that communicates in ways vastly different than our own would be able to surmise that our noises and drawings are communication of some form.
You are assuming they think like we do or that their communication works like ours. For instance, if they are deaf it would be very difficult for them to even realise that we are using sounds at all. Or if they communicate by direct contact and chemical signals which are relayed in group patterns. They might not consider intelligent communications between individuals to be possible.
No, I'm not. I am assuming they are intelligent and have seen enough diversity in life to know that not all creatures communicate the same way.
That seems logical, but I'm remembering the old idea that we'd have walking robots long before we'd have robots playing chess. We've got grand champion computers now (I think), but a robot that could descend a short flight of stairs was exciting enough to have a whole show centered around it at Disneyworld when I went there this year. It's hard to predict which is the easier problem. Given the really lousy job we've done with even grammar-checking human languages that we know, and translating between languages that we know, I'm inclined to think that the language problem is harder than the faster-than-light travel problem. On the other hand, I think that it's so hard that you're going to have to cheat and introduce telepathy or something of the sort, which suddenly makes it a bit easier again.
But somehow people didn't have a problem with the movie Mars Attacks! when somehow a human scientist made a language conversion device before aliens he never witnessed even got to Earth.
I agree with Dymmesdale. Aliens are always depicted as highly intelligent creatures, so its not at all surprising to see them writing in English. But it is certainly be a problem if their vocal chord are not like ours. For that reason, why not make a plot where aliens have telepathic abilities ?
