Tintin in: The Black Island #3
Tintin in: The Black Island
Episode 3
Beginner
Hi, my name is Ben, and welcome to Ben's Language Lab. Stories are one of the best methods to improve at a 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. and make sure you subscribe for more videos like this one. For now, your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. Right now, we're currently reading Tintin and the Black Island. If you haven't seen the other episodes, click the link in the description to watch from the beginning. So, let's get into it. We left off with Tintin taking the ferry across the channel, trying to get to Eastdown to investigate what was happening with that unmarked aircraft, that unmarked airplane. He and Snowy are being followed by these two men who have something going on, something fishy. But we don't know what. All we know is that they are following Tintin, who is in this taxi going to East Down. So let's see what happens next. And so now from Tintin's car, he says, did you notice that car, Snowy? How it shot past us? When something shoots past something else, it's very fast, right? So they were driving this way. Boom, shot right by them. So that's what this car did. It sped up really quickly and shot right past. And it looks like they swerved and they stopped right there in the middle of the road. Huh? What's going on? Tintin asks himself, because the car is now blocking their way. And now he says to this guy, It's okay. They're coming this way. Ready? So they're planning something. They're plotting to do something to stop them. So they're walking towards them and then they notice, okay, shh, be quiet. They're coming towards us. And so he pulls out a stick right as the taxi driver is asking the man in blue, going to be long, mate. And then he says, I don't know. It's the brakes, something wrong. And then wham, he gets smacked in the back of the head. That's not very nice of you, mister. But he smacks him in the back of the head. And the driver also pulls out a little stick to hit Tintin on the back of the head as well. Fine, he says. And then Snowy looks like he's running off somewhere. And then they take off again, saying, too easy. That was so simple. Couldn't have been easier. However, uh-oh, Snowy is grabbing onto the rear bumper of the car. For dear life, look at his little scared face. he's following those men. Oh, and look, they captured Tintin with them, so that must be just the driver of the car. And now he says to his friend, look, Pushkov, our friend Tintin is coming round. Aha, he says. To come round is to wake up, right? So Tintin was knocked out and so the man and now he's coming around right that means to wake up again but typically from something that is you're not supposed to be asleep so if you're gonna if you are just normally asleep and you come around that doesn't really make sense it's when you're knocked out in this case So you managed to escape from the police. It would have been wiser to stay safely behind bars. So now this man is sort of threatening Tintin because he managed to escape from the police as we saw in the last episode. But this man is now saying that it would have been smarter, it would have been wiser to stay in prison behind the bars because he would have been safe. So they're threatening him with something. So we'll see what happens. And then he says, stop, Ivan, this will do. OK. And so he stops the car. It looks like they're on the water, the cliffs of Dover, potentially. I think that's down south in England. And so now the two men get out of the car. Get out, and don't try to be clever with me. And so now they're walking Tintin at gunpoint. He's right at the point of the gun at gunpoint. They're walking Tintin out of the car. And then he says, don't you think this joke has gone far enough? What do you want with me? And so he's asking, what is this all about? What are you doing? This joke has gone far enough. That's just a way of saying that it's sufficient. It's happened far enough. And then he asks, what am I doing? What did I do? What do you want from me, from Tintin? I didn't do anything, did I? We have a bigger panel now. Let's see if I can show it all. Yeah, okay. Here it is. And it says, you needn't put on an act for us, you know as well as we do. So now they're saying that Tintin knows what's happening, even though he really doesn't. You needn't put on an act for us. So to put on an act is to pretend something's real or something's happening. In this case, Tintin is saying that he doesn't know what's happening and they don't believe him. They don't think he's telling the truth. And so they say you don't need to put on an act. Needn't is sort of an old way of saying is of need not, right? And then you get rid of this part and it kind of all connects. However, nowadays we'd say you don't need. However, you might see needn't in sort of older texts, and it means need not or don't need to put on an act for us. And so now he tells his friend, undo the rope. And so now Tintin is looking down over the cliffs, down into the water and going, oh my word, what is going on? And then he says, good, now my brilliant friend, you are going to become the world high diving champion. Jump, he tells him. So a high dive is somebody who dives from a high place, right? And diving is like this, to go down and dive into the water. And so he's threatening him to jump off the cliffs and probably die. But oof, yeah, there's rocks down here. That does not look like a good place to do a dive from. So I hope Tintin doesn't jump. But let's see what happens. And Snowy, oh, they're going to murder Tintin. Help, what can I do? Snowy's talking to himself as a little dog. And he's worried that they're going to kill Tintin. And so he has to come up with a plan. What's Snowy going to do? And the man says, go on, jump. And then he says, to make it look like an accident, I suppose. So an accident is something that was not done on purpose, or it was not supposed to happen. So in this case, he was maybe walking along, and fell, right, accidentally. Because they don't want to make it look like he was killed, because then they'll look for the killers. But in that meantime, Snowy sees this goat going, baa, baa. And Snowy has an idea. He grabs the post out of the ground, the stake, as the sheep goes, what are you doing, dude? What's going on? What are you doing? Baa. And then Snowy pulls out the stake, and he kind of barks at the goat, grr, and then bites the goat right in the back. with this nah sound, which I'm not gonna do that sound, I don't know how, and the goat is now startled and he takes off running after Snowy, trying to catch him, and Snowy runs at the men and he says, as he's saying, get on with it, jump, I'll count to three, one, two, huh, Snowy, boom, and he gets hit by the goat and he's bald, I didn't know he was bald, look at that, he has no hair. And his gun flies out of his hand, and his associate, his partner, is very surprised at what's happening. And Tintin realizes that it's snowy. Good old snowy. So let's keep going here. He catches the gun, and then he turns to the men and says, all right, hands up. And that's what he's doing right here. He puts his hands in the air. Hands up. Don't do anything. And the man goes, look out, they're coming back to distract Tintin as he looks this way. He's warning that the animals are coming back one more time. And they are actually. It wasn't just a trick. But the goat is still chasing Snowy because he's still upset that he bit him in the ankle. And the two men escape saying, let's get out of here. Which means, let's leave, right? Let's do this. Let's go. Don't worry, we'll make sure of him next time. So now they're saying that the next time they see Tintin, they're going to actually kill him. They're gonna get him the next time. And we still see Snowy being chased by the goat, which is funny. And Snowy makes it under the post and boom, the goat slams into the post and the little stake that was holding him in the ground flies over and lands on poor little Snowy's head. That's twice in this book that Snowy's had something fall on his head. But good job, Snowy. And now we see that the goat is rather confused and he's got a bump on his head. It's got a welt the size of a golf ball, it looks like, as he's very confused and stunned because he hit his head very hard. But Tintin, all nonchalant, which is, that's a good word, that's a pretty uncommon word, but it means he's being very casual, very normal. Come on, Snowy, we must get moving, as normal. And now he comes back and he's telling Snowy, you have some brilliant ideas, Snowy, but don't let them run away with you. He's saying that to run away with something is when something else gets control, right? So to run away with means that the idea got more control of Snowy is the warning. But his idea was brilliant. It was very smart. Good job, Snowy. You saved the day. And so now we see somebody on the phone, looks like he's German. Hallo, ja, Dr. Müller speaking. So it is you. What? Tintin on our trail? I don't know how to say that, I'm sorry. We shall have to keep our eyes open, but it's not an English word. And so the German man is on the phone and he seems to be talking to these men in the car and they're calling him somehow. because he's also worried about Tintin. And so now Tintin's still walking and we see that he's four kilometers, I think, four kilometers from east down. And he's walking and he sees a gate open and an unmarked aircraft with a policeman. Oh, hello. The wreckage of the plane that crashed last night. Come on. Let's have a look. Right. So to have a look is to go see something. Whoops. I didn't want to do that. I want to do this. To have a look is to go see something. So we want to go have a look. And the wreckage is something that is destroyed. So this is wreckage right here. It's not a functional plane anymore. It is wrecked. It's a wreckage of a plane that crashed. And now Tintin notices, what a mess. What happened to the pilot? The pilot is the person that drives the plane, right? The person that would have been, remember that first episode, the two men that were piloting the plane? What happened to them? Don't know, sir. We found this lot this morning. No sign of the crew. They must have bailed out when they ran into trouble. um so this word actually does not say bailed it says bald but i don't know that word i know the word bailed which is oops hang on let me change my thing there we go b-a-i-l-e-d which is to jump out of something i'm gonna bail right um and so okay this is the wrong color now it's gonna bother me okay there we go And so they bailed out of the plane. I think it's just a typo because I don't know the word bald like that. That doesn't make any sense to me. But anyways, um, so there's no sign of the crew. Um, and he's saying that there's no sign of the crew. They don't know where they are. Um, and so they must have bailed because they just found the wreckage this morning. And now Tintin's checking out the wreckage and he says, it's the plane I saw yesterday, definitely. But I shan't learn much from this pile of scrap metal. Again, here's another word, shan't, that nowadays we'd say won't. Right? W-O-N-T is what we would now say. But I won't learn much from this pile of scrap metal. Right? Because, yeah, it's just metal and scraps and broken stuff. He's not going to learn anything. But it is 100% the same plane that we saw in the episode one. But it looks like Snowy's finding something. Snowy's sniffing around. sniffing to see what he finds, and Tintin yells at him, Snowy, what are you doing? But he realizes, Snowy's on to something. On to something, when you're on to something, that's another good word, that means that you're following something, that you have an idea. He figured something out, so he's on to something, but we don't know what yet, but let's follow him. I mean, he's picked up a scent. It must be of the crew. A scent is a smell, right? But it's a little more, it's usually for animals. So in the case of they're following a scent, right? So he's following the scent. The scent is going this way. He's following that scent because it must be from the crew, the people that were flying the plane. There isn't a dog in the world like him. He can smile at a crook a mile away. So now Tintin is complimenting Snowy, saying that he's a good dog. He's the only dog in the world that can do this sort of thing. There isn't a dog in the world like him. I keep using the wrong thing. There isn't a dog in the world like him, right? He's unique. And he can smell out a crook a mile away. A crook is somebody who steals something or is doing evil things. It's sort of a criminal. There's another way to say that word. But we better be on our guard. We must be getting close. To be on guard is to be really careful, right? So to be on guard is when you're really watching what's happening, right? You're kind of guarded. You're making sure that nobody's going to sneak up on you and jump out at you, right? And so tension is making sure to be on guard because they've got to be getting close, right? Snowy is still following the scent. And now Tintin says, careful, mustn't take any risks. A risk is when you maybe do something that you probably shouldn't because it's a little bit dangerous. So don't take any risks, he says. Mustn't is, again, sort of old-fashioned way of saying don't, which is short for must not. Same sort of idea there. Good. But Snowy notices something. What do I smell now? And Tintin goes, huh? As Snowy runs around this tree to find, oh, something, I don't know. Here we go. He's found something. And Snowy's now digging and he finds a bone. Of course, typical Snowy, typical dog. And Tintin is very upset, doing some sort of swear word here because he thought Snowy found something interesting. But no, Snowy just dug up an old bone like a dog might. And now he yells at him, aren't you ashamed wasting our time bone hunting? Here, give it to me. So he grabs that bone and takes it away from Snowy because he's wasting their time, right? Wasting our time. To waste time is when you don't spend time very well. So in this case, they went on this adventure, they looked for this thing that was just a little bone. And so he's not, ashamed is when you feel bad about something. I'm sorry, I feel ashamed, right? And so that's what ashamed is. Aren't you ashamed of wasting our time bone hunting? Here, give it to me. I told you dozens of times you're not to chew filthy old bones. To chew like a dog and on filthy old bones, right? These old bones that are lying around in the forest. And dozens of times, a dozen is just 12. And so there's many, many times I've told you. Here, Snowy, come here at once. He yells at Snowy to come back to where he is. Bad dog, come here. But Snowy goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's barking as he sees something. We don't know what that is, though, and we're going to have to find out in the next episode, because we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks for watching and enjoying. Make sure that you subscribe to the channel and comment with how it was. How was the episode? What did you learn? And remember, transcripts for all episodes are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Have a good one.
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