Tintin in: The Black Island #6
Tintin in: The Black Island
Episode 6
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. And so today, we're going to read a comic together. This video is meant for beginner-level English learners. And if you need, there are subtitles available, or you can see the entire transcript on benslanguagelab.com. Make sure you subscribe for more videos just like this one. But for now, your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. Currently we're reading Tintin and the Black Island. If you haven't seen the other episodes, click the link down in the description to watch from the beginning. Alright, let's start learning. Last time we ended with Tintin and Snowy examining this old burned house. It's not old actually, it's just burned. Remember there was a fire and Tintin got caught in that fire. He was briefly in the hospital here with the doctor, right? He was lying in the hospital bed with the doctor, but he went to investigate in this burned house. He's looking for clues. He wants to find something else that will lead him to what's going on. And so he just got to the house and said, heavens, there isn't much of Dr. Muller's house. It's gutted. It's completely burned. I shan't find anything useful here. Nowadays, we'd say won't. I won't find anything useful here, but shan't is short for shall not, but you don't need to know that. He's walking along and, oops, he trips. He gets his foot caught on something. He goes, toof, and he falls down to the ground going, huh? And he says, electric cables, what can they be for? So this cable is a wire that carries electricity, right? Electricity. Right, that's electricity. And so this cable will carry it into the house for something. And he goes, hmm, I wonder what that's for. And so he starts to pull it out of the ground and says, they seem to go on, which means they continue, right? So there's, they keep going, they go on, they continue. And he says, how odd, where on earth could they lead? Where on earth can they lead? Where do they go? They're leading him somewhere. He's going from point A to point B. He's being led somewhere up a tree. Now we see the electric wire goes through the grass to the tree and then goes up the tree. And so Tintin looks up at the tree going, what? What's going on? And so then he pulls on the wire as hard as he can, and crack! Something comes falling down from the tree, which is a light, it looks like, which, boom, smacks him right in the head. As snowy, he runs away. And he goes, a red beacon? I don't understand. A beacon is something that flashes or makes light so that people can see it, right? So for example, an airplane. An airplane will look for beacons that are going wah, wah, wah, so they can fly to the correct spot, right? So this is a light, a beacon, that is trying to tell somebody that here is good. Here's the correct place or something like that. And so Snowy is hiding behind the tree, trying to also figure out what happened. And we'll move on. And he says, that isn't all. The wires continue along here. And now Snowy thinks, I say, Tintin, are you going to do this all day? This is boring. Because Snowy wants to do something else. He wants to go look for bones, maybe. But Tintin is investigating. And he looks up the tree and says, huh, there's another light here too. There's a second light, right? There's more beacons. And so he goes, continues following the path of the wire. And he sees that, oh, and now there's a third one, right? There's a third beacon. There's so many beacons. And he says, three trees are connected in a triangle. The three trees, number one, number two, and number three are connected, right, into a triangle, right? This is a triangle is that shape. And he goes, got it. And he remembers that this, this note that we found a couple episodes ago. And then he says, these are instructions to that plane. 3FR triangle means three flares red in a triangle, right? And so it was a secret code that he put on here. Three flares red, right? That's this color, red, and these are also flares, beacons, flares, anything like that is sort of the same. And they're all in a triangle. It was a signal that was a message to land here and meanwhile we see Miller and Ivan Ivan are having some drinks and cigarettes, right? They have some beers here and they're each smoking a cigarette. He doesn't have us. Yeah, his is up here. He's smoking a cigarette It says meanwhile And he says, and the worst, and the worst of it is, he's German, remember, and the worst of it is another plane is due to deliver tonight. If the lights are not on, he will go back without dropping his load. And I am running short on money. I am running short on money or of money. on money also works but so let's look at the look some things here plane is due to deliver tonight if the lights are not on he will go back without dropping his load and I'm running short of money actually it's just short of is the phrase here so due to Come on, why did I keep not switching? Due to is when somebody is supposed to do something, you're scheduled to do something, right? Right now it is, let's say 6.30, right? Right now is 6.30. Oh, that's a three. It's 6.30 at seven. I am due to go have dinner, right? I am due to do something. So in this case, there's a pilot that is due to deliver something tonight. He's actually supposed to deliver a load. A load is just some sort of package or something like that. In this case, it's cargo or we don't really know exactly what yet. And then we know that Mulla is worried because he is short of money. He's short on money. It would be more natural nowadays. So I'll change it here. On. He's short on money. That didn't help at all. That's when you don't have very much, right? You know, I only have a little bit of money left. I'm short on money, right? I can't give you very much. Sorry, I need more. I don't have very much. And so he's worried. Now he says, We must return, Ivan. This is the plan. We enter the ground after dark and light the beacons. The plane drops its load, which we put into the car. By tomorrow morning we can be out of the country. What do you think? And he says, good idea, chief. So their plan is to go back tonight at night, and they're going to light the beacons. They're going to turn the beacons on. So they're off, on. And then they're going to take the load, and they're going to put it into the car. So the car, here's the car. And they're going to put the load into the car. And then they're gonna leave the country. They're gonna go to some other country, maybe France or Germany or something like that with the goods. And then we see later that night, right? So now it's dark. We see Milla and Ivan here. They're sneaking back into the grounds. That's the other word there. The grounds is here, basically. It's the outside part that is in the house, right? So the house is, let's say here. I'm going to draw a little map, right? Here's the house that burned. That's fire. Everything around here is the grounds, right? So it's the part around the house. And so they're returning to the grounds, and he says, Himal, the cables have been pulled up. The cables have been pulled up. Someone has discovered our installation. And he says, look over there, chief. The beacons are alight. The beacons are on, right? So off, but on. The beacons are alight. And they go, someone else is waiting for the plane. If they drop the load now, we are finished. We have got to stop them. We must put out those lights. Here, help me cut the wires. And so he pulls out some wire cutters to cut the wire, because he wants the lights to turn off. And so, but then he goes, oh no, but chief, the lights are still burning. The lights are still on. This didn't work because look, Tintin is sitting here with some batteries that have energy. I'll draw my lightning bolts again to represent energy. Wait, hang on. Like this. That's how you do energy. Boom, boom, boom, right? Right, these have power in them. And so he doesn't need the cables because obviously they're cut. But Snowy looks very bored. Hmm. Are we going to sit here all night? That's what Snowy's thinking. And he's wondering, I wonder if they'll come tonight. And we hear. And he says, okay to drop, I can see the lights, right? Here's the beacon, here's the light that we see in the tree. And now he goes, oh no, it's too late, there is the plane. He says, one out, and they drop it down, they drop the load down into the place. And then Tintin goes, great snakes, they've dropped something. Great snakes is just what Tintin says as, oh my word, oh my god, something is happening. Great snakes. Because they drop something. What is it? I wonder. I don't know what it is. Let's find out, huh? And then he goes, let's see. And he runs with Snowy off to the side. And then they notice, Tintin, confound him. And this is sort of another old-fashioned word, but it's like, no, you, you rascal, Tintin, you, what are you doing? He's sort of swearing at him. And confound it is a way of saying that. And then we go two away, right? Away is when you've sort of thrown something out, right? So one away, two away is a way that you can say that. And so the second package is being dropped to the ground. Thump. Another. That fell quite close. It should be easier to spot than the first one. So here we have some other words. So that fell quite close, right? So far away is over there and quite close is right there. There it is. I see it. There's the thing right there. um so it should be easier to spot which is to see right so oh i spotted that thing so it should be easier to spot than the first one right that one fell way over here right that one fell quite far but this one fell quite close and then he says i wonder what i'm going to find he's all excited now but now we see that milla is hiding behind the bush with ivan with his gun And then they go, last one. And it lands right on his head, knocking him out cold. Ivan, he notices him and he starts to run away. And then Tintin yells, stop. Stop or I'll fire. I'll shoot. And he says, he must think I'm daft. That's stupid. He must think I'm dumb. I'm stupid. He hasn't a hope of hitting me in the dark. And so he has no chance, no hope of actually hitting him in the dark. He'll go like miss, miss, miss. However, because he thinks that it's too dark, he can't see very well. I don't, where are you? I don't see you. It's too dark. However, he says, I'm warning you. And then he goes, steps onto a rake and it goes. It hits him right in the face and he pulls the trigger. Bang, which shoots his hat right off. It grazes him right in the hair and the head and shoots his hat off of his head, which of course scares Ivan. And he says, don't shoot. I give in. I don't want to die. Right. I give in is I give up. I'm okay. I surrender. I'm not going to do anything. You take me. He doesn't want to die. I want to live. However, Tintin is knocked out cold again on the ground because he ran right into the rake. And Snowy, of course, is going, what happened? What are you doing, weirdo? And then he says, can I put my hands down now? So he wants to put his hands down. I won't play any tricks, right? A trick is when you trick somebody, right? So he might say, I'll put my hands down and then you'll pull out a gun himself, right? But you won't play any tricks is what he's saying. But Snowy goes, wake up, Tintin, wake up, get up. And then Ivan turns around and says, oh, he sees him on the ground and says, stupid fool. He trot on the rake and knocked himself out. Trot is an old way of saying stepped, stepped, right? To trot on something is to step on something. And so he stepped on the rake and. knocked himself out, I'll take his gun, he's gonna go grab the gun from him, and Snowy thinks, Golly, what can I do? Golly is like, great snakes, or oh my God, or O-M-G, right? Golly is just another way of saying that, it's a little more old-fashioned, a little of an older word. And so, Ivan is gonna take Tintin's gun, but, Wham! We see that Tintin puts his foot right on the rake and hits him right in the face. And then he says, quits, which means stop, right? Get out of here. Don't do anything else. Stop. And then Snowy goes, wow, out cold. We've said this a couple of times, but when you're out cold, you're just totally unconscious, completely asleep, out cold. And so now here we says, um, the most important thing is to trust them up to up securely. Again, a bit of an old fashioned word, but that's means to tie, right? So he's going to tie up their hands that they can't move to trust them up securely, right? That means that they can't get out when something is secure. It means it's safe. or really well tied up in this case. And so here he's trussing them up, he's tying them up. And he says, necessity is the mother of invention. So they say, if you haven't any rope, use wire. So this is a bit of an idiom or a phrase that we have. Necessity is the mother of invention, which means that if you really need something, if something is really necessary, it's going to cause you to be more inventive, to come up with more ideas. He doesn't have any rope, there's no rope, he only has wire. Remember those wires, the electrical wires? And so he comes up with a new idea. He'll use the wires to tie them up. If you haven't any rope, use wire. And then he goes over to the sacks and says, now for the sacks, the bags. That's what these are, sacks or bags. Let's see what's in them. Let's see what they contain, right? And so he looks in and says, great snakes. Again, banknotes, money, right? A banknote is like the paper money is another way of saying that. It's a bit of a fancy word for it as well. And he says, forgers. So that's your game. You'll go to gowl for this. I don't know what that is. That must be jail. or a specific jail, maybe it's the name of a jail, but you'll go to prison for this, right? So you're going to be locked away. because they're forgers. When you forge something, that means that you create something that isn't real. And so in this case, they're not real banknotes. It's not real money. It's fake money that looks real. And so they're forgers. And that's what they're up to. That's their game, right? That's how they're making their money. And he says, you'll go to goel for this, which I guess is jail. I don't know what goel is. It looks like it's wrong. I've never heard that word before. But we're going to have to figure out what happens next in the next episode, because we're going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much for watching and for enjoying. Make sure to comment and subscribe with how things went today. And remember, all transcripts for episodes are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.
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