Tintin in: The Black Island #1
Tintin in: The Black Island
Episode 1
Beginner
Hi, my name is Ben. Welcome to Ben's Language Lab. Stories are one of the best ways to improve at language, and stories with pictures are even better. So today, we're going to read a comic together. This video is meant for beginner-level English learners. If you need, there are subtitles available, or you can see the entire transcript on benslanguagelab.com. Make sure you subscribe for more videos like this one. In this series of videos, we're going to read from the adventures of Tintin, and we're starting with The Black Island. This is an old comic series that I read growing up. Right now, your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. So let's get started. Here, we have the cover page, and it says The Black Island. And here, we can see Tintin and his dog, Snowy. That's the dog's name. And they're on a boat of some kind out in the water. We don't know where yet. We haven't started the story. But we do know that they're going to the Black Island. So let's see what they're up to. All right, here in the beginning, the Black Island. So here we see Tintin walking along, happy. He's got a little smile on his face. And there's Snowy chasing a little butterfly. How cute. and these lines of speed coming off of him. And then Tintin hears a plane in trouble. He hears behind him, and so they both turn around to look. Tintin says, oh, that sounds bad. It doesn't sound very good. I don't like what I'm hearing. And we see the airplane starting to fall out of the sky. And here in this panel, now we see the airplane is almost crashing, but it looks like it's landing okay. Tintin notices, he's watching, he notices that it's probably a private aircraft. It's probably not owned by a government or an airline. Private is for one or two people, because we can see that there's only a few people in the plane. So it's probably a private aircraft, says Tintin. And so he says to Snowy, well, let's go see. Snowy, let's run off and go see what's up. Let's go see if these people need help. And so they go off together to investigate what is going on. So now we see the airplane had two men in it. And one says to the other, will it take long to fix? And then he says, no, just a few minutes, nothing seriously wrong. And we see he's checking the engine of some kind, or he's looking at what's wrong with the plane as the other man steps out onto the wing. The wings of the plane is where you fly. And so he's stepping out onto the wing to talk to the other man. And then Tintin notices why it's an unregistered plane. Registered is something that is known, or you put it in with the government or with somebody who knows what your thing is. So in the case of the airplane, it might have some numbers or a registration, right? So like one, four, nine, six, six, or whatever it is, something like that to say, this is a registered plane, this is what it's doing, this is where I'm going, right? That's what a registration would be. And Tintin notices that it's unregistered. What's going on? Somebody doesn't want to be recognized of who owns this. And then we see one man notices Tintin. He's out looking towards Tintin. And he says, someone coming, Mick. This must be Mick. This is his name. And Mick says, well, too bad for him. You know our orders. Orders are when somebody like a boss or somebody higher up tells you what to do. And so if you know our orders, that means that this guy, not Mick, this is Mick, has to do something because those are our orders, right? You must do this thing. And so Tintin says, are you in trouble? Can I help you out? Do you need anything? As he's walking towards the airplane. But the man pulls out a gun. Oh my word. He pulls out a gun from inside of his coat and shoots at Tintin. And then we see Tintin is laying on the ground, and he's knocked out. He's concussed or confused. We're not exactly sure what yet, but these lines signify or tell us that he is unconscious. And Snowy is chasing after the plane, barking at it, woof, woof, arf, arf, as the plane takes off because Mick fixed the problem. So let's see what happens to Tintin. Now in the next panel, here we see it says next morning. So it's the day after. So Tintin was found, and it's the following day. And we see the nurse says to the doctor, well, doctor? And he then answers her, he was lucky. A bullet only grazed a rib. He'll be up and about in a couple of days. grazed is when something barely touches something else, just so lightly, right? So in the case of the bullet, it grazed his ribs, which are right here. You can see that and also hear me at the same time. These are your ribs right here. And so the bullet went and barely touched him, right? And the bullet is what comes out of the gun. But the doctor says, he'll be okay in just a couple of days. That's fine. So, whew, we don't have to worry about Tintin. But then from off of the panel, we hear somebody say, excuse me, nurse. And we see these two men, which are dressed identically. Can we see Tintin, please? And then she says, you can go in. Right on ahead, you can go in and see Tintin. So the two men sit down and say, look here, are you absolutely sure the plane had no registration marks? Right, so the men are now asking about the registration of the plane. Somebody must have told them that Tintin was shot and that something is happening. So Tintin answers, I'm quite certain. I saw with my two eyes, I saw there was no registration whatsoever. And so in the next panel we see This man says, hmm, it all looks very fishy to me. And the other one clarifies, to be precise, the whole thing looks, like me, very fishy. Which doesn't really make any sense, being honest, because this means the whole thing looks, like me, as I look fishy, like a fish. Fishy is also when something is suspicious or something is happening. Hmm, something is fishy here. Kind of smells, right, like a fish might if it's left outside or something like that. We see Tintin is watching the two men be fools because these men are not very smart. And that's why they say things like this. To be precise, the whole thing looks, like me, very fishy. Now the nurse comes back in and she says, telephone please for Mr. Thompson or Mr. Thompson, right? And we'll notice that the only difference between their names is one single letter. One of them has a P and one of them does not have a P. That's the only difference. And so he answers the phone and says, hello? Yes. Interpol? Yes, sir. Thompson with a P as in psychology. That's not very helpful, right? Because in English, we spell the word psychology with a P. Because that's what we do. From Scotland Yard? East Down? Last night? Yes, sir. I understand. We'll leave at once. We'll leave right away. And so we know now that Thompson with a P, as in psychology, got a call from Interpol, which is the international police, because something happened in East Down, which must be a small town somewhere in England, maybe. I'm not really sure. And he says, I understand what you've asked me, my orders. We will leave right now, right away. And so he tells Tintin, We're going back to England. An unregistered plane crashed last night near a place called Eastdown in Sussex. Goodbye." And Tintin is a little surprised. He goes, another unregistered plane? How interesting. And so Tintin says to them, well, goodbye and watch your step. Be careful. But of course, they're not being careful, they're not watching their step, and they step right into a puddle of water. Crash! What was that? I was surprised. And then one of them blames the other, why can't you look where you're going? To be precise, speak for yourself. Hmm, now we're back to Tintin thinking. Eastdown, if only. I simply can't be helped. I simply must go. Never mind the doctor's orders. So now that Tintin is thinking, he wants to go to Eastdown and see what's happening. because he's an investigator. He investigates things and learns things. And so he really wants to go to East Down to understand what's happening. It simply, it can't be helped. It can't be helped up here. That just means there's no other option. Sorry. So Snowy sees that and Snowy thinks, oh man, what are we doing? And so now, Tintin and Snowy are off. They're leaving. And the nurse is so surprised that she drops the entire bucket of water onto Snowy's head. Poor guy. Goodbye, nurse. Many thanks. Many thanks is another way of saying thank you very much. It's a little old-fashioned, so I wouldn't use it, but it works. And so now we're in the next scene. And it looks like we're at the train station. Ah, the silly fools! Who'd you think they shot at last night? Tintin himself! So now we see the man is reading the newspaper, right? He's reading the newspaper to see what's happening. This is before smartphones, obviously. And it looks like Tintin was reported on. Somebody told the newspaper that Tintin was shot at, which is not a good idea because that means that Tintin is going to figure it out. Tintin is going to go searching for clues and learn what's happening. But this man says, pity they didn't finish him off while they were about it. And so to finish somebody off means to kill them, really. It means to finish killing somebody. It typically means they were started to be killed, such as being shot at, right, as was in the hospital. And so finishing somebody off would be to finally end them. And so maybe these guys are a little bit evil. And then he says, as we see Tintin and Snowy are getting onto the train. The train is going to Cologne, to Brussels, and to London. And so he must be going to London because we know that Thompson and Thompson are also going back to England. And so here we see the train is now going, it is off, and Tintin is fast asleep in the train car with Snowy there next to him, using the newspapers as a little bit of a bed. How cute. Uh-oh. But then somebody's arm, which looks suspiciously like this man, somebody's arm is pulling the stop, right? So this is the emergency stop for the train, which means that everything is going to immediately come to a halt because it's an emergency of some kind. And so Tintin is completely unaware, he has no idea what's happening, and poof, falls onto the ground. What the? So he says, huh, why have we stopped? What's happening? Where are we? Let's go look out in the corridor, Snowy. The corridor is that part outside the compartment, so inside he's here. This side is all the room, the compartment, and then out here is the corridor, or the hallway is another word for that. So yes, now we're here in the corridor looking out there and we see, oh, somebody's running away down through this entry. We better go check this out. There's a door open and somebody's getting out. Come on, Snowy. Let's go investigate. Let's go check out what's happening. And so they run off together after whoever this was. So let's see what's happening. There he goes. He can see the person off in the distance over all the way over there. There he goes. But then he's caught by this man. What do you think you're doing? Oop. Eek. Let me go. A man jumped off the train. We must follow him. He jumped off. That's when you jump off something. He jumped off the train. We have to go after him. We have to catch him. And the inspector says, you can't fool me. To fool is to trick or deceive somebody. You can't fool me. I'm not an idiot. And then they both hear something from behind them. Everybody stay where you are. To stay where you are is to not move. So don't move, everybody. Stay where you are. They hear that from somewhere and they go, what's that? And now we see, uh-oh, one of the Thompsons is now here. No one is to leave the train, he says. Don't leave the train. No one is allowed to leave the train. Stay on the train. And we see this man is knocked out again with a little He's coming round. He's waking up, says Tintin. And the man is, oh, my head hurts. And then Thompson is surprised. Tintin? Aren't you in bed in the hospital? And he says, no, of course not. And then the man says, there he is. I'd know him anywhere. I'd recognize this guy. He knocked me out. It's Tintin. And Tintin says, me i didn't do anything me so it's clear that this man is lying he's not telling the truth and we see both tintin and or both thompson and the inspector are surprised as well huh what's going on and then one of them says aha a kosh useful thing for knocking people on the head Right, like that. This is a kosh. It's a stick to hit somebody on the head with. Not a common word, but that's what he said. And then he checks his pockets and says, robbery two, here's the poor man's wallet in your other pocket. And he pulls out from his pocket, right, in his. From his coat pocket. He pulls out the wallet and the kosh from his two pockets and Tintin says I'm innocent. I tell you it's a trick Someone planted the the kosh and the wallet in my pocket while I was asleep. I've never seen them before This is I've never seen this. This is new to me. What's going on? I didn't do anything says Tintin. I To plant something, right, so you might have heard of a plant like a tree or a bush, but when you plant something on somebody or you plant something like evidence in this case, it's when you take something and you put it somewhere that it shouldn't be in order to trick somebody, right? So somebody took this wallet and put it into Tintin's pocket, planting it there, And then later on, when Thompson found it, he goes, you did it. You're at fault. It was you, Tintin. But no, somebody planted the kosh and the wallet. And then they say, what else can we do, Tintin? The evidence is all against you, right? And Tintin says, I agree. It looks bad, but I promise I didn't do it. Evidence is stuff like this, right? The reasons why somebody might have done something. But in this case, he has a kosh and he has a wallet on him from the poor man who was knocked out, who was actually one of the evildoers, I guess. And they say, we have no other option, Tintin. It looks like you did it. I'm sorry. What are we supposed to do? And Tintin goes, yeah, I know you're right. But, that is where we're going to end this for now, because we've hit a couple of scenes and this video is a little bit long. So we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks for watching and enjoying. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and comment with how it went. What did you enjoy? What did you learn? And remember, transcripts for all episodes are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye bye!
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