Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn #2
Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn
Episode 2
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. 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 to subscribe for more videos like this one. Your job is just to watch, listen, and enjoy. We're currently reading Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn. If you haven't seen the other episode, click the link in the description to watch from the beginning. Alright, let's start learning. So last time, we stopped when Tintin and Snowy had just found this beautiful boat. This model ship. It's not real. It's not a huge, big boat. It's a small boat that you can put on your desk or on a shelf right up there. You could put the boat. And they saw this boat, and they want to buy it. They want to give this man a quid, he says, which is an amount of money, and they want to buy it. So let's see what happens. Why is this boat interesting? And then, so... So Tintin asks the man, how much for the boat? How much will you sell it to me for? And he says, a quid. It's a beautiful boat. It's an old type of galliard. It's a very old type of boat. And then the kid says, and then Tintin says, the kid? Tintin says, 16 and six. So he's offering him a different price. We know they're talking about money because they're gonna buy something, even though he just does say a number. And the man says, done, yours for 16 and six. That is a deal, I will shake your hand. That's what done is and he's saying you could have the boat. It's yours for 16 and 6 and Then this man walks up and says how much is that ship? He wants to buy it too. He's walking up right as Tintin is paying He's taking money out of his wallet ready. We can see him here. That's his wallet. This is my wallet a very small compact wallet and he's taking money out of his wallet to pay the man and But this man comes up, he has glasses and a top hat, that's this type of hat, a top hat, and he says, how much is that ship? I want to buy it. And then, but the man says, I'm sorry, sir, I just sold it to this young gent. A gent is a gentleman, a gentleman, or a young man. It's a very, it's a bit of a formal word for man. I just sold it to this young gent. And the man goes, no, he's upset. Darn. And then he says to Tintin, I'll buy it from you. And then Tintin says, no, I'm sorry, sir, but it's not for sale. I don't want to sell it. I like the ship. And so he says, no, basically, a little more politely. I'm sorry, sir, but it's not for sale. And then he says, look here, young fella, listen up, listen now, come on, listen, look here. I'm a collector. How much did you pay? I'll give you double. He'll give him twice, two times. That's a lot of more money. Double what he just paid five seconds ago. And the man said that he's a collector, and he called Tintin a fellow. A fellow is a similar word to gentleman. It's a bit of a way to refer to somebody. And usually it's like a friend sort of thing. Look, listen here, friend. I'm a collector. A collector is someone who gathers similar things. They collect them. So for example, someone might be a book collector. They might have a collection of books. They might get books from all over the world, all kinds of books. Right, I can't, right there, I have some books. It's not really a collection, it's very small, it's a few books. But you can collect books and add them one after another. Some people collect necklaces or earrings. They might collect glasses. You can collect glasses. You can collect rings. You can collect anything, really. But a relatively common thing to collect are antiques, things that are very old. Antique is a way to say old, but in the case of stuff, it's things that are very old and antique. So for example, a beautiful old ship is something that somebody might want to collect, apparently like this man. But Tintin says, thanks, but I'm keeping it. I like the boat. I don't wanna sell it. And then this man comes up and says, how much is that ship? And he's reaching for his wallet and he wants to buy it right now. And then Tintin goes, oh my, what does everybody want this boat for? I'm curious to find out. In order to not, go ahead, there we go. And then Tintin says, I'm sorry, sir, but this ship is not for sale. For sale is when you want to sell something. You might see in a shop window or on a car a for sale sign. That means that somebody wants to sell it. It is for sale. But this ship is not for sale. He does not want to sell it. And then now Tintin starts to walk away. We see he's leaving with the boat in his arms and Snowy by his side. And this guy says, I'll give you a fiver for it. A fiver is a five pound note. Like last time, I don't know how to do this pound sign, like in pounds in British money. So I'm going to use the dollar sign. I'll give you a fiver. That's $5. I'll give you a tenner. That's $10. That's double. And he paid one quid. He paid one for it. They're offering him five, 10 times the amount. 20, 30. 30! They're offering him 30 times what he just paid. And then he says to them angrily, look here, I want to give this ship to a friend of mine. I'm not selling it. So please don't pester me anymore. And so he wants to give it as a gift. He wants to give the ship to a friend of mine. Right? If you remember to last episode, he said that he wants to give it to Captain Haddock. And so he's not selling it. And please don't pester me anymore. Pester, I'll write it together here for you, pester. To pester is to bother or to beg somebody, right? Will you sell it to me? Will you sell it to me? Will you sell it to me? Or when's dinner? What are we gonna eat? When's dinner? What's gonna eat? You're bothering somebody, you're pestering them. It's very annoying. And so they are pestering him to sell the ship. But he doesn't wanna sell the ship. But that makes Tintin wonder. He thinks to himself, now why were they both so keen to buy my ship? He doesn't know. But he gets home and we see a few minutes later. And then he puts the ship down on a desk and he looks at it. He's looking at the ship on the table and he says, it really is superb. Captain Haddock will be delighted. He'll be very happy, right? This'll be him. He'll be very happy. Big, big smiley face. He'll be delighted because it's superb. It's amazing. It's beautiful. Look at it. That's a cool ship, right? I think it's cool. Two thumbs up. Anyways, we see here, ring, ring, ring, ring. And then Tintin goes, oh, I expect that's him, Captain Haddock. However, we see, uh-oh, it's the man again. I apologize, it's me again. And Tintin goes, huh? How did you get into my house? Right, because now we're in Tintin's home. And the man starts to explain, he starts to tell Tintin why. He says, forgive me if I'm too insistent, but as I explained, I'm a collector, a collector of model ships. And I would be so very grateful if you would agree to sell me your ship. And then, but Tintin says, I've already told you, I bought it for a friend. And so he's being insistent. To insist is when you insist on something, right? Stop it. Stop it. Stop your being insistent. And so he's insisting. He's saying, I really want to buy your ship. I really want to buy your ship. Please sell me your ship. because he's a collector of model ships. A model, I briefly said earlier, but a model is something that is not the real version. I don't have a model with me, but the ship is an example, right? It's not a real ship. A real ship is huge. You can fit dozens of people onto a ship. Tons of people. 10, 20 people can be on a ship. But this ship is small. You can fit it in your hands. You can hold it. It's not real, it's a model ship. And so he would be so very happy, very grateful, if Tintin would sell him the ship. But Tintin says, no. I told you already, no. But then he says, exactly. Now, I have other ships just as good as yours, and we could exchange them so that your friend, and so now the man is trying to think of an idea to buy the ship. He knows that Tintin wants to give the ship as a gift, and so he says, I'll give you a different ship, another ship, right? Not this one, another one, because they're just as good. We can exchange them. When you exchange two things, one for the other, right? I have this, you have this, we can exchange them. But the intended says, it's no good. Please don't go on, I'm keeping it. Go on is to continue. Intended saying is just no, go away. I want to keep the ship, it's my ship, I bought it. And then he says, very well, but think it over. Think it in your head and think it over, which means to think about it over the next few days or hours. Contemplate it. Hmm, should I sell that ship? Think it over. I'll give you my card, a business card. A business card has your information on it, right? So your name, your phone number, some way to contact you. I'll give you my card so that if you change your mind, To change your mind is when you decide something else. For example, if you don't want to sell a ship, but then you might change your mind and say, yeah, I'll sell my ship. That sounds OK. But then Tintin says, I shouldn't count on it. I wouldn't count on it if I were you. To count on something is to assume that it will happen, right? You can count on me uploading another episode of this comic, so make sure you subscribe. You can count on that. But you shouldn't count on Tintin selling the ship. He doesn't want to. But then the man says, well, I shall hope. I will hope that you will change your mind. But then Tintin says, goodbye, sir. But then we hear, crash. And Tintin looks around. Crash, what happened? Go back to the top here. What's happened, he says, like I said. And he runs over and says, Snowy, what have you done? Now look, it's broken. Snowy got up on the table and he pushed the ship down onto the ground and it crashed into the ground. And now look, it's broken. This part is broken off. But oh, luckily it's not too bad, right? Luckily it's not that broken. I can soon mend it. I can quickly fix it. Men is an old way to say fix or repair. So Tintin's going to put it back and it's all good to go. So he's going to fix it quickly with soon. And so he's playing with it, he's fixing it, and then we hear ring, ring. It's the doorbell, right? Ding dong, something like that. And he says, oh, this time it must be the captain, his friend. Just threw my pen. This time it must be the captain. And the captain says, hello, Tintin. He says, hello, captain. You're just the person I wanted to see. You are exactly the right person who I wanted to see. I don't want to see the man. Get him out of here. I want to see you, Captain Haddock. He says, come on in. Come on inside. I've got a surprise for you. is what he says. I have a surprise, a present, a gift. He's going to go, a surprise, right? And then he says, Tintin, what a magnificent ship. Thundering typhoons. Right, he sees it and he goes, that's super cool. And then he says, oh, thundering typhoons, oh my word. This is what Captain Haddock says as a way of being surprised. Thundering typhoons, where did you find that ship? He's now very surprised and he asks Tintin where he got it. Where did he find the ship? And then Tintin says, in the old street market. Why? What's with the ship? Is it important? And then Captain Haddock says, 10,000 thundering typhoons. What a remarkable coincidence. Imagine. So we don't really know what he's talking about, but he says the word coincidence. A coincidence is when two things happens at the same time without, and it's really weird. So, for example, if you're thinking of a friend of yours, you're thinking of your friend and then they text you, that's a coincidence, right? They text you and you're thinking about them at the same time, that's a coincidence. Or another coincidence might be that you opened YouTube today and you saw that this video had just posted two minutes ago and you wanted to watch the next one. That's a great coincidence. What luck. But then we want to go back to this, right? And Haddock says, no, come with me. Then you'll see those two words rhyme. Come with me. Then you'll see. It sounds fun. Oh, switch back to this, please. There we go. Come with me, then you'll see. So attention goes, oh, where are we going? Are we going to look at this? And then how to keep saying remarkable, remarkable. It's really remarkable. That's amazing. Unbelievable. Wild. It's one of those words that has a lot of different meanings, but it's mostly, oh, that's remarkable. Right? So let's see what's remarkable. And then he says, here we are, now you'll see. I mean, because he finds something. He's looking around and says, you'll see, I'll show you, look. And he points to the ship in the picture, a picture of somebody who looks a lot like Haddock. Oops, that's backwards. That looks a lot like Haddock. He looks more like a pirate, almost. And there's a ship in the background, right? That's my background. This is the ship in the background. And then he says, is that you? Is this You? Are those the same person? And then he says, no, no, no. It's one of my ancestors. An ancestor is somebody that was born in your family many years ago. So for example, your great-grandmother or your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather or something like that. No, it's one of my ancestors, Sir Francis Haddock. He lived in the reign of Charles II, so many, many years ago, a long time ago. And then he says, but take a closer look at the ship in the background. And he looks closer, and he says, it's just like the one you saw in my room, isn't it? Exactly, he says, precisely. It's the same ship. It's identical. Identical is when two things are exactly the same. There's no difference whatsoever. I don't have something that's identical. Maybe, I mean, these, my earphones, look identical. They're identical. These are not identical. These are different. They're the same thing. They're both for putting on your lips, but they're not identical. Identical is when, oops, is when two things are exactly the same. They're identical. Don't you think that's remarkable? And then he says, hey, look, there's a name here. He's looking at the ship and he sees a name, right? There's a name on it. We can't see it, it's really small. But he says, look, they're in tiny letters, tiny little letters, right? So they're a unicorn, unicorn. Remember, a horse with one horn, a unicorn. So there it is, unicorn. I'd never noticed it. Haddock didn't know that it was called the unicorn. Before, he just didn't see it. He'd never noticed it. When you notice something, you're looking, and you, what's that? You notice something, but he didn't notice it. And then he says, oh, maybe there's a name on mine too. We should have brought it along. We should have brought it with us. When you bring something along, you grab it and you take it with you wherever you're going. Oh, but wait here. I'll come right back. I'll go get it. I'll go fetch it. Fetch is same word for get. It's to grab something and bring it. And so Tingen is gonna go get the ship to look at the name. He says, if mine is the same name, that'll be really funny. That'll be really strange, right? If it's the same name, if it's identical, that'd be very funny. Let's see, he says. Great snakes, it's gone. But we're going to have to figure out what happened to the ship in the next episode. We're going to leave it here for today. Thanks for watching and enjoying. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and comment with how it went. What did you learn? What did you understand? And remember, transcripts for all of the episodes are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.
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