Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn #16
Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn
Episode 16
Beginner
Hi, I'm Ben. Welcome to Ben's Language Lab. Stories are one of the best ways to improve at a language, and stories like this with pictures are even better. So today, we're going to read a comic together. This video is meant for English beginners, and so if you need, there are subtitles available, or you can see the entire transcript and more on my website, benslanguagelab.com. Make sure that you subscribe for more videos just like this one. Your job right now is just to listen, watch, and enjoy. We're currently reading Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn, and we're almost done. If you need, you can click on the link in the description to start from the beginning. All right, let's start learning. Last time, we had left the Thompsons trying to get off their hats because they were pulled down over their eyes. And then we heard them shout, hurrah, that's it. Let's see what happens next. Of course, it goes, it comes off, but then he goes, wham, and hits his head right against the wall. These Thompsons are a bunch of fools, don't you think? They're not the smartest, but it's fine. At last, he's managed to get it off for me, is what he says, as the other one is back with his hat down over his eyes, sitting on the ground. And so Tintin, of course, says, come on, Captain, we'd better help this poor chap. Chap is another sort of older British word for guy or dude. We'd probably say, we better help this poor man. This poor guy is a little more American, I think. But they're going to help him because he's not the smartest. And here we go. And the captain grabs his hat and says, ready, steady, heat! Whoops! And he goes flying backwards. Just as I went flying backwards. And then SMASH! Right into Nestor, I believe is his name. Oh, Nestor! And he smashes right into him and his brandy or whiskey or whatever it was goes flying up into the air. Let's keep going then. And then he looks at the ground. No! All of the drink has spilled and shattered and exploded. He's so sad. Captain, says Tintin, as soon as we return, we'll see Mr. Sakkarin. I'm sure he took the two scrolls. Yes, we've only got one, says the captain. So this is about the scrolls again. They're still missing two. They only have one, but they want all three, right? But then, oh, one, great snakes. We haven't even got that, he says. He realizes they actually have zero. The bird brothers took it. Ah, but we can get it back, right? The two brothers, right, this guy and his brother had taken his scroll. But then Tintin says to him, give me back the parchment you stole from my room. He says, you stole it from me. The one from the room, he says. Give it back? That's impossible. Max has it in his pocket, he says. Because he doesn't have it. Max's other brother has it inside of his pocket. So I can't give it to you. he says ring up the police station at once give them a description of max bird and his car number lx 188 and then we'll go straight back into town he says so they're asking he's asking them to ring up the police station Ring, ring, ring, hello? Right, they're ringing up the police station, which is where the police work, and give them the description of Max Bird. So that's the guy, right? His description is what he looks like. He's tall, he's wearing a black coat, he is large, he has brown hair, no hat, something like that as a description of somebody. And you would say that's somebody's description, so that's his description. and his car number. We saw that on his license plate is LX188. Whoops, LX188. And then we'll go straight back into town, he says, right away. And then one Thompson says, right, I'll do that. And then we go to the next morning. They've slept, it's the next day. And so Tintin says, now for Mr. Sakarine, Sakarine, Sakarine. Whatever it is. And he's walking with Snowy, and they're going to go talk to this guy who must have stolen the other papers. Ring! He rings his doorbell. Ring! But then he was talking to the lady. Mr. Sarkarnine, he's gone away, young man. He won't be back for a fortnight. She says, as she answers Tintin's question, he must have asked, but that was like in this section, because we're skipping over to make it go faster, right? But he's gone away, he's not home, and he won't be back for a fortnight. Fortnight is not a word we use anymore as a unit of time, but it used to be two, come on now, but it used to be two weeks. There's no dash there. Two weeks is a fortnight. And so you might come across that, but probably not. But what she's saying is, he won't be back for two weeks. He would be away. That doesn't make things any easier. So Tintin's saying, of course, it has to be difficult. Why does it have to be difficult? In the meantime, I'll go to see the Thompsons. Perhaps they'll be able to tell me if they've found Max Bird. So he says, okay, whatever, I'll go try to talk to the Thompsons to see if they found something about the other bird brother, because right now I can't do anything else. And he says, good morning, are you going out? I just came to ask you, shh, mum's the word, come with us, he says. And so Tintin goes to the police station and he sees them leaving. They're going outside, right? This is inside that direction, outside this way. And so he shakes their hand and says, oh, are you going out? And I just came to ask you, and then he gets cut off, right? Shh, mum's the word, which just means be quiet or it's a secret. That phrase really doesn't mean anything else. It's just that. Mum's the word. I mean, if you say to somebody, all right, mum's the word, I won't say anything. So, shh, come with us, he says. Where are we going? You'll soon see, he answers. And then just a few minutes later, they come to a door and they go, they knock on the door. Rat-a-tat-tat, he says. Oh, gotta turn the page. And then he says to the man, Mr. Aristide Silk? Yes, he answers to him, to his name, right, that's his name. I arrest you in the name of the law. Arrest me? Yes, you, you are a thief, sir. A thief? Aristide Silk, retired civil servant, a thief? It's a mistake, gentlemen, a shocking mistake, he's saying. And they're saying that he is a thief, he steals things. But then he says, me, a restyled silk, I'm just a retired civil servant. A civil servant is somebody who works for the government. So civil is like civilization. If you think about that word, civilization is essentially what we all live in, society, what makes these buildings and farms and government possible is from civilization. And so a civil servant is somebody who works for that civilization. So he worked in government of some kind and that sort of thing. Says, me, a retired civil servant, a thief? It's a mistake, gentlemen, you've made a mistake, a shocking mistake. Right, he's there, he's saying that he's charging, he's saying that they're being ridiculous, basically. A shocking mistake. And then Tintin says, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Silk, but could you explain the meaning of all this? And he looks down at there's a book here. There's some paste, which is a British word for glue. We would just say glue. Looks like there's a clipping here. And it looks in here, it says pickpockets, wallet snatchers. And so it looks like some notes of things. Oh, and on here it says, property of our bigs. I don't know what else it says. Perished on? 2558? I don't know what that other says, but it's somebody else's something else, right? Our Biggs is not Mr. Silk, right? Our Biggs, they're different, so we must have stolen that. So he says, uh, I, yes, well, you see, I'm not a thief, certainly not, but I'm a bit of a kleptomaniac. It's something stronger than I am. I adore wallets. So I, I just find one from time to time. I put a label on it with the owner's name. Ah, this is a wallet. And so this must say pinched on. Pinched on, and that's the date when he stole it. So it was stolen on this day or date, which is sort of interesting. And we actually see it says 58, so this is the 20th. of the fifth month, January, February, March, April, May, the 20th of May in 1958. I wonder when this was written. Let's actually figure that out. We're going to pause for a quick second. Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn was written in Oh yeah, there's a movie. I don't want the movie. I want the comic book series of the same name, The Adventures of Tintin. Yeah, it was coming out in French originally in 1940. Wow, that's old. Okay, I can't exactly find it, but it looks like it is, about that old. Yeah, 58 sounds about right. So this is a very, very old story, which is cool. Anyways, this is a wallet with a tang on it, right? He's saying that he puts a label on with the owner's name because he likes wallets. He doesn't like the money. He likes to steal things for the having them, right? He likes to collect them. And a kleptomaniac or a klepto is what you might hear as well, is somebody who like has this obsession or anxiety to take things or to steal things. And it's like this, it's more, it's like an anxious mental illness, which is sort of pushing him to do the, to steal things, even though he doesn't really want to steal them, he just finds himself stealing, if that makes sense. And so that's what he's saying. I'm not a thief, certainly not, but I'm a bit of a kleptomaniac. It's something stronger than I am because... He doesn't really want to steal wallets, but his mind is sort of pushing him to. That doesn't make it okay, but that's what he's saying. I adore wallets. I love wallets. So I just find one from time to time, he says. And then he puts a label on it with the owner's name, and I add it to my collection, he says. And this is his whole collection of other people's wallets that he's stolen. And that's what he likes. He likes to just have the things, right? So he has the letters on them, right? We see A, B, C, there must be D, E, F, G, H. So he must have hundreds and hundreds of wallets of different people, from other people's wallets, right? and I added to my collection," he says. I venture to say, gentlemen, this is a unique collection of its kind, and when I tell you that it only took me three months to assemble, you'll agree that it's a remarkable achievement," he says. And so let's break that down. He's gonna venture to say a unique collection of its kind, and it only took him three months to put together, which is amazing, he's saying. So, I venture to say is like, I dare say, or I'll venture in to say, it's like the same root as adventure. He's going to dare to say he's going to try to say and he's going to claim that it is a unique collection One of them there's one of these stolen wallet collections in the world so in of its kind right there's other collections of stamps or dog collars, water bottles, I don't know. And it only took him three months, 90 days is what he's saying, to steal all of those wallets. And so that's probably a couple of wallets every single day. And so he found himself stealing these. And so he's saying it's pretty amazing that he could steal that many wallets, of course. And then Tintin says, wow, it's amazing. These wallets are in alphabetical order. They're in alphabetical order, which means they follow A, B, C, D, they follow that order, right? An order is when something, it falls in its place, and alphabetical is when they follow the alphabet. And so Tintin's noticing, wow, they're all in alphabetical order. I wonder if by some extraordinary coincidence, He's wondering, and he looks, and he goes, hooray! Property of Max Bird, the man who he was looking for. They're looking for, rather. Because, if you remember, the birds thought that Tintin had stolen the papers. And so Tintin realizes, I didn't steal the papers, I didn't steal the scrolls, so I wonder, and so he goes over to M, or B rather, because bird, he goes over to B, and he finds Max Bird's wallet, pinched just a few weeks earlier on the first And then he says, yes, hooray, and here are the two pieces of parchment. Captain, Captain, right, Rackham's treasure is ours. He finds, oh, and then he drops the wallet right onto Snowy's head. And so now he's saying that he is the two Papers here and then the other one. Although I think he's Might have lost it, right? We'll see But that means they have three papers now because Mr. Silk stole them He says goodbye. Don't forget to look under the letter T. He says the letter T They ask why the letter T look under the letter T? Why T? Good gracious, this belongs to me, he realizes, because, of course, they're not the most intelligent, and they forgot that they had their wallet stolen just a few weeks ago. The property of Thompson, this is yours. Property of Thompson, property of Thompson, property of Thompson, property of Thompson, Thompson, Thompson, Thompson, Thompson, Thompson. And so they find all of their wallets, because they have their wallets stolen, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times. Oh my God. Bunch of fools. A bunch of idiots. And these are all of their wallets that they got stolen by this one person. By one person in a couple of days. Idiots. And the next day, we see we're now with Captain and Tintin. Red Rackham's treasure is ours. It's easy enough to say. We found the two scrolls, I know, but we still haven't got the third. He's saying he's upset because they need three. And like I said, they only actually have two right now. They have these two, and they lost the one that was in Tintin's apartment. It looks as if, he says he's reading closer, and then we hear ring, ring, ring, ring. Hello? Yes, it's me. Good morning. What? You've arrested him? He's very surprised. And he's talking on the phone, and they've arrested somebody. That's so exciting. Well, not exactly. But thanks to the clues we gave, they managed to catch him trying to leave the country. What about the third parchment? Did you find it on him? And so here we see Max Bird, the other brother, and they found him, but thanks to the clues we gave, right? So this guy found him as he was trying to leave the country. He was trying to go abroad. And then Tintin asks about the third parchment. Did you find it on him? Yes, he had it. We're bringing it along to you. But first, we've got a little account to settle with this troublesome antique dealer, he says. Um, so they do have the, uh, he had it. So we had the scroll and we're going to bring it along to you. We're going to bring it to you. But first we have to do something, a little account to settle with an antique dealer. Um, so that's somebody who they have to go meet with and settle an account, which is. They have business to do. To literally to settle an account is to pay what you owe and to not have any debt, to stop owing somebody. But in this case, it's when you have some business to do with somebody, right? You can settle up with somebody. It's not literally always money. It's sometimes like they have to do something, right? So they're gonna go deal with this antique dealer and talk to him first. However, that's all the time that we have in this episode. we're gonna have to leave it there for today. Thank you so much for watching and enjoying and make sure to subscribe to the channel and comment down below with how it went. Next time, we're gonna be finishing this series once and for all. And remember that there are always transcripts on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time, bye.
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