Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn #1
Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn
Episode 1
Beginner
Hi, my name is Ben. 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. Today, we're going to read another comic together. This video and series 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. Your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. Today, we're going to start a brand new series. We're going to read Tintin, The Adventures of Tintin, and The Secret of the Unicorn. We're starting a brand new series. If you want, there's another series on my channel that you can watch in its entirety, the whole thing. Let's get to it for this comic. This is Tintin and the secret of the unicorn. And we'll figure out what all of those things mean. However, I do wanna clarify that a unicorn is like a horse, but it has a horn, one horn, a unicorn. Everything else we'll figure out in the story. So we start here with the secret of the unicorn. Let's get the size right, there we go. And we're starting with a little bit of information. The news in brief. Brief is something very short. And the news is what has been happening. And so this is a little bit of information for the story. An alarming rise in the number of robberies has been reported in the past few weeks. So a robbery is when somebody steals something, right? And so if somebody comes up to you and they take your phone out of your pocket and then run away, that's a robbery. And so more people have been robbed in the past few weeks, right? Two weeks ago, a little bit ago. Daring pickpockets are operating in the larger stores, the cinemas and the street markets. And so pickpockets are people that take something out of your pocket, right? So pocket, you take something out of your pocket. If they do it very carefully and you don't notice, right? So they come in and they, they take something out of it. They're picking your pocket. And so we call them a pickpocket. and they're working, they're operating in stores, big stores, supermarkets, and in the cinemas, the movie theaters, movies, right? We call it the movies nowadays, but the cinema is a bit of an older word, and street markets. So a market on the street, much like this one, where there's people going around, buying things and stuff like that. A well-organized gang is believed to be at work. Here's a couple of good words. At work is when something is happening, something's being done, right? There's a plan, typically, when you are at work, rather. There's also the literal sense of like when you're at your job working or working or whatever you do for work. But when you use it in this sense, it's more like they're doing something that they've planned. And they is an organized gang. And so a gang is a bunch of people that commit crimes together or they work together to do bad things like steal money and pickpocket. And they're organized, so they're working together as a group. And they're thought to be, they're believed to be at work. the police are using their best men to put a stop to this public scandal. And so the police are, right, the people that go solve problems, they fix things in the community, and they're using their best men, their best police officers to stop this public scandal. A scandal is a big thing that's happening that everybody knows about, or that a lot of people know about. Right. And so if the president says something that is bad, right, that might be a big scandal, right? Everybody goes, oh, yikes. And they all know about it. And the same here. Everybody is afraid of having their pockets picked, having their money taken out of their pockets and stolen. They're afraid of that. And so now, let's get into the real story. And so here we see Thompson and Thompson, who we met in the last series of Tintin. And they say, we must keep our eyes open and catch these crooks. A crook is a thief, a criminal, right? Somebody who steals things or does bad stuff like that. And they're saying we have to keep our eyes open, not literally, right? They literally have their eyes open, but they're watching, they're looking around, right? They're trying to find the crook because they want to, aha, I got you, you crook. They want to catch them. And so they say, how about starting in the old street market? Tintin said he was going there this morning. Perhaps we'll meet him. And so they're friends with Tintin, they know Tintin. And they're gonna go meet in the old street market. Because Tintin is going to be there today, this morning. And they might wanna see him. And so he says, good idea, let's go. And so now we see here, we see Tintin and Snowy, and they're in the Old Street Market. Yeah, Old Street Market. And we see that there is a man standing here with a green, what looks to be a vase. He's holding a vase for flowers, right? You might put flowers in there. We see some other things, right? Here's another vase. It looks like an old clock, a picture frame. And there's a bunch of people, right? One, two, three, four. There's tons of people here at the old street market. So, let's see what happens next. We see Tintin walking through the market. He's got his hands in his pockets, right? His hands are inside of his pockets. We can't see them, they're inside. And we see some more people. This man has a book under his arm. This man is smoking. We see this woman with a red handbag. Lots of things at the market. And we also see Snowy is trying to scratch himself. He's very itchy right now. And then Tintin says, oh, why, there are Thompson and Thompson, right? Thompson and Thompson. They're at the street market. And so Tintin goes up to them and says, hello, how are you? And then they turn around. Look who's here. It's Tintin. And they're both happy to see Tintin, right? And then they say to him, what are you doing here? Looking for bargains? Tintin doesn't know why they're here. And so he asks, what are you doing? How are, why, why are you here? Are you looking for bargains? A bargain is a good deal. And so it's when you find something for very cheap. Let's say that you wanted to buy a Book here. I have a book here. You wanted to buy a book and the book usually costs five dollars a Bargain would be when you find it for two dollars. That's such a bargain. That's a great deal And so at the market you can often find stuff Right this sort of these things for very cheap not very much money. And so it's a good bargain And so lots of people like to go to markets to look for bargains And so, they respond to him and say, shh, highly confidential. It's very secret. Highly confidential, Tintin. It's a special operation. We're working to solve this problem. This operation, this plan that we have is to stop the pickpockets. And then, of course, Thompson says, but that didn't stop us from finding this job lot of walking sticks. We know that Thompson and Thompson always have walking sticks. They always have canes with them. And so they find one, two, three, four, five, six great walking sticks to buy. A bargain. A job lot is just a good bunch, right? It's a very old-fashioned word, but they found a whole bunch of these great walking sticks. even though they're working, right? They're looking for pickpockets, but they can still look for walking sticks, right? How much? How much do you want for all these, for these walking sticks? And then the seller, the man says, eight bob for the lot. And Bob, I guess, is a way to say shillings, right, which is an old English money. We don't use it anymore in, really, I don't think anywhere in the world. I think Britain uses pounds and pence, but it used to be a thing that was used. And so he says, eight bob for the lot. And then he responds six shillings, which is less, right? He went from eight to six. And then the guy says, no seven, but I'm Robin myself. Um, Robin like is robbing, right? We often drop the G and words. Um, and so, but I'm Robin myself. And he's saying that because he doesn't want to sell them for too cheap. because he wants at least seven, and he's saying that it's a very good deal. That's what he's saying, at least. And so what they're doing is haggling. Haggling is when you go back and forth. Pay me eight. No, I'll give you six. How about seven, right? And they're going back and forth on the price to find what works for both of them. And that's called haggling or negotiating. Oh, that's page one. So page two, gotta go back up to the top. And then he says, over there, he says, see, you've always got to haggle a bit here. Haggle is what I just said, right? Gotta go back and forth to get a slightly better deal. And he's giving him a tip. And so then he reaches for his wallet to pay. He keeps his wallet in his breast pocket, which is up here. He reaches, uh-oh, my wallet's been stolen. Where'd it go? My wallet's been stolen from me. And then he says, but that's absurd. You must have left it at home or perhaps you've lost it, right? Because if it's been stolen, that means someone. They took it. They went in and they took it out of his pocket. So he says, no, no, no, that's crazy. Did you leave it at home? Maybe you forgot it or you lost it. You dropped it somewhere. It couldn't have been stolen. And then he says, no, I'm sure someone has stolen it. Someone's stolen it from me. And then he gives him, here, you hold these sticks. I'll pay. I'll give him the money. And then he says, just the sort of thing that would happen to you. And he's telling him that he's being such a dummy, right? Just the sort of thing that would happen to you to go and let someone pinch your wallet. To pinch is another way to say to steal, right? So when you pinch something from someone, it means you steal something, because typically you have to be very light when you want to steal something, right? You don't want them to notice and go, I saw you, you're stealing my money, right? They have to pinch it away. And then, uh-oh, mine's gone too. They've both had their wallet stolen. That's too bad. And so then Tintin says, here, let me pay for them. So he offers to buy the sticks for them. And they say, thanks very much, Tintin. We'll pay you back tomorrow, the next day. We'll pay you back. We'll give you the money that you lent us. And so if I say, I'll lend you 50 pesos if you want, I'll lend you this, you can have this, but then tomorrow you should pay me back. I want you to give me back my money the next day. And so that's when we say to pay back somebody. It's when they gave you something and then you can give it back to them. And then Tintin says, there you go, sir. And then they both say goodbye. We're going to report this straight away. They're going to go to the police station and they're going to tell somebody, our wallets were stolen. Oh no, that's terrible. They're going to go report it right away, now, straight away, first thing. And so off they go. They're walking away. They have their walking sticks and they're very upset. And then they keep walking, and oops, they grabbed something with the walking sticks. It attached itself to this briefcase. It hooked onto it and pulled it away. And then somebody yells, stop, thief, help, my suitcase, because they think they're being robbed. They think they're being stolen from. And so Tintin hears that and runs over to help. And we see, boom, crash. right, these stars coming up as somebody's being beaten up, there's a bit of a fight. Let's go to the next page. Zoom in here. And then they say, and then Tinjan comes up and says, what's going on? And then the man with the books responds. He has some books in his arms and he says, they caught some thieves red-handed. When you catch someone red-handed is when you find them doing something in the moment, right? And so if somebody is stealing something out of your pocket and you see them, they're red-handed because they are currently stealing something. If they had already stolen something and you catch them after, that's not red-handed. Red-handed is during it. So for example, if your dog eats the garbage sometimes, right? Your dog goes into the garbage and he makes a mess. There's garbage everywhere, but you didn't see him. You just saw garbage and your dog was going, right? You caught him, but it wasn't red handed. However, if you come into the room and your dog is in the garbage eating, you caught him red handed. And then the man with this angry policeman says, special branch, special branch, you can tell that to the inspector. As they're both have been hit all over the head and they look not great. And then Tintin is now looking for Snowy and he says, Snowy, Snowy, and he calls out to him and Snowy says, all right, I'm coming. But he's still very itchy. Oh man, right? And then as Tintin's walking around, he says, I say snowy. Isn't that a fine ship? This, this is a ship, right? Um, and it's very fine. It's very beautiful. Fine is a word that we use for eh, fine, whatever, but it's also used for things that are really nice and delicate, right? Not great necessarily, but they're beautiful. So for example, you might have heard of Fine Dining. Fine Dining is a very fancy restaurant. And so Tintin says, wow, Snowy, look at that beautiful ship. And then he says, it really is a beauty. I have a good mind to buy it for Captain Haddock. Captain Haddock must be his friend. And a captain would work on a ship. And so we can guess that Captain Haddock likes ships. He likes boats. He must be a sea captain. And Tintin wants to buy it and give it as a gift to Captain Haddock because it's so beautiful. Then he asks the man, how much? And then the man responds, a quid. It's a unique specimen. It's very old, a very, very old type of galliard. And he says a in there. It's maybe thinking of how to sell it better. A quid again is another amount of money. I believe it is one pound nowadays. How do you do the pound sign? Is it like that? I don't actually do the British pound symbol ever. It's like a dollar, but in a long time ago. So it was a good amount of money. And so, and it's quite a specimen or a unique specimen. Oops. Come on now. There we go, unique specimen. A specimen is a thing or a version of something. And so for example, a scientist might have different specimens from different parts of the world. Or in this case, it's just a very beautiful thing. There's not many of them. The word specimen tends to say that it's special. And he's saying it's very, very unique. It's very special. Unique actually comes from the word for one, right? Uni, right? So like there's only one of these. There might actually be more. We don't use the word unique for only one, but it means very special. And he says it's an old type of galliard, which is a type of boat, right? And so it's just the kind of boat that has lots of masts and sails on it. But there we go. So, that's actually the end of this first episode of the Adventures of Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn. We're going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much for watching and enjoying. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and comment with how you enjoyed this new episode of a new series. And make sure that you come back next time for episode two. Remember, all the transcripts are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.
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