Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn #7
Tintin in: The Secret of the Unicorn
Episode 7
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. 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. Make sure you subscribe for more videos like this one. Your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. Right now, we're reading Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn. If you haven't seen the other episodes, click the link in the description to watch from the beginning. All right, let's start learning. So if you remember to last episode, we were on the ship of the unicorn and Haddock was captured. He was tied to the post. He was tied to the mast and Red Rackham was here and he was telling him what happened. He told him that he should be afraid. My name will freeze your blood. You killed Diego. That was this guy. Oh, he's on the other page. He killed his trusty mate and more than half of his crew is dead and his ship is sinking. And then when, and when some of your dastardly gunners fired at point-blank range, she's sinking. So my men are transferring to this ship the booty we captured from a Spaniard three days ago. And so they're taking over this ship. They're transferring all of the booty, all of the treasure, because she's sinking. And what booty it is, This is the treasure, this is the booty. Look at these diamonds. And a Spaniard, by the way, is a person from Spain, the country of Spain, and they stole it, they captured from that ship. And it's beautiful, expensive diamonds. And Haddock is, whoa. They are worth more than six times a king's ransom. Did you come here just to tell me that, he says. A king's ransom, so a ransom is how much you need to pay for something that somebody stole. So if you, for example, take a captain of a ship hostage and you have him here, you might tell the king, pay me this much money or I will kill him, right? It's a threat. And the ransom is how much you have to pay. But he's saying it's six times more than the king's ransom. It's worth a lot of money. And then he says, did you come here just to tell me that? No, that's not why I came. I came to tell you that those who annoy me pay dearly for their folly. Oops, well, sure, let's talk about both those words. Tomorrow morning, I shall hand you over to my crew, and that flock of lambs know just how to administer a lingering death. Of course, all these big words are cross line. So administer is to give, to apply, right? So if you're administering a death, it means you're killing somebody. But a lingering death, lingering is when something stays somewhere, it stays in the air, right? So a lingering smell is when something just doesn't go away, right? It stays in the air. or a lingering thought, right? It's just kind of sitting in your brain and you're thinking about something. Or in this case, a lingering death means that it takes a long time to die. So they're going to kill him slowly. A flock of lambs, I don't really understand. A lamb is a baby goat. Right? They have little ears. That's a lamb and a flock is a bunch of an animal. So he's calling his crew lambs, but lambs are very nice. I don't know. Um, but he's going to hand them him over tomorrow morning. Oh no. Because He will pay dearly. That's another good one. To pay dearly is when something is worth more than just money. Not necessarily, but it's usually more than money. So if you pay dearly for something, somebody might kill you or steal something or hurt you. It's a threat. You'll pay dearly for this, for folly. And that's just... Problems things you cause messing around right because you annoyed him you bothered him right something that's annoying you might be in the Get away It's really annoying you and so he is Annoying red Rackham and so he's going to pay dearly by being killed slowly So Saying he picked, he laughed sardonically. So saying, he laughed sardonically, picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp, like this. A gulp, by the way, is that. When you gulp something down, and so you can do it with liquid or a drink. And then laughing sardonically is, right, sort of a big maniacal laugh. because he's an evil person. And then he took his glass, what he had, and... But then Tintin actually grabs him and stops him and says, that's enough, Captain. Go on with your story. You've drunk a lot. Very well. Towards nightfall, the unicorn with her pirate crew sighted a small island. Small island right an island is a small piece of land in the middle of the ocean So they spotted a small island and soon she dropped anchor in a sheltered cove Actually, this is the whole this is one island. These two pieces are actually connected back here and because a cove is a part of the island that goes in. So if we're looking from above, pretend that we're looking down. Right here is the ocean. Here's the ship, maybe. And if there's an island, it might be like this. And so this is the island right here. And this is the cove. It's this part sort of inside. It's still water. It's still connected to all of this blue. This is all water out here, water in here. This is all the ocean. But there's this section inside the island a little bit where you can go inside. And so it's called a cove and sheltered means that it's covered or it's there's nothing that you can really get to you. So it's not windy. It's not rainy. They can hide in there and they can live right. were inside of a sheltered cove because it's night. Nightfall is when it becomes night. And they saw this island. And so they dropped anchor, right? The anchor is this part of a ship that goes and you drop it into the water so that the ship doesn't move. It goes down into the bottom of the sea, right? Something like that. And they're really heavy, a heavy anchor. So they dropped the anchor and they stopped moving. Darkness fell. The pirates found the unicorn's cargo of rum, broached the casks, and made themselves abominably drunk. Abominably drunk. Yeah, I was right. Abominably drunk. This is a cask, right? Casks are these big wooden barrels that you put liquor into, rum, whiskey, things like that. and they broached the casks. Broach is a bit of a weird word, and it's when you sort of open something by stabbing, right? And so they stab into the casks, and then rum comes out. Right? It starts to come out, because they had their cargo of rum, and they found it. And so they got very drunk. Abominably drunk. And very, very drunk. You can see they're here, they're laughing, they're singing, they're drinking. All of these pirates under nightfall. It's darkness. There's the moon. Abominably, yes! That's the word, he says. Hey, what's the idea? Oh yeah, because he wants to drink more. So he picked up his glass and said, abominably, I want to drink more. But then Tintin grabs the glass from him and he goes, hey, what's the idea? I only wanted to show you. And then he says, you don't have to. I quite understand. Because he wants to drink more and Tintin does not want him to. And so he goes, hey, I just wanted to show you what it was like to be abominably drunk. And then Tintin says, no, I understand, dude. Let's go. Let's move on. Just as you like, Tintin. Now, where was I? All right, Tintin, whatever you say. Okay, what was I saying? The pirates were abominably drunk. And then Snowy's drinking and he goes, ooh, yummy. And now he's a little drunk too. So let's go back to the next page. And uh-oh, now he's seeing double. When you see double, it means you can see two of something. You're so like, oh, that you can see two things. That's funny. Now there are two glasses. And oh, and there's two haddocks and two tintins to everything. And then Captain Haddock continues, well, in the meantime, in the meantime, Sir Francis struggled desperately to set himself free, to free himself. He was struggling, he was moving, and er, er, er. And he says, just you wait, my Lampkins. Ration my rum if Sir Francis Haddock doesn't soon give you something to remember him by. He's sort of talking to himself, just you wait, my Lampkins. And then don't drink all that Russian or Russian rum. Right. That's what he said earlier was if if he doesn't do this thing, you could he will never drink rum. which he won't do, so he'll do that thing. It's a way of saying, we have a phrase that we often use is, when pigs fly, which is the opposite, right? When pigs fly, won't happen. Pigs don't have wings. Pigs can't fly. Pigs are, but they can't fly. And so you say, when pigs fly, it means something will never happen, right? Ration my rum, he'll never ration his rum. To ration means to use less. And so he's saying, I will never not, it's like a double negative, it's a bit confusing, but ration our realm if he doesn't do this thing. So he will do this thing is what he's saying. Anyways, and then something to remember someone by is kind of what it says, right? If you remember somebody, it's because you gave them a reason. So he's gonna, or do something to them to make them remember him. So, oh, I done it. That's one hand free, right? So we got a hand free and he's going to get the other hand free now, right? Here's his free hand. And so then he's free. Now I'm free. On your guard, Red Rackham, here I come. And with these words, he hurled himself. to hurl is to throw like or to right like that he hurled himself on the pirates like that unarmed he and so Tintin is worried that he threw himself onto the pirates attacking them but he didn't have a weapon unarmed he didn't have a sword or a pistol nothing no on a bottle of rum rolling around on the deck he opened it put his put it to his lips and So this is a bottle of rum and it was rolling around on the deck and he grabbed it and he went to drink it and then Tintin says, and then he stops. This is no time for drinking, he says. I need all my wits about me. With that, he puts down the bottle. And so Tintin is still trying to stop Haddock from drinking in real life. And he tells him that This is not the time to be drinking. Don't drink, you. It's an important time. I need my wits about me. That's your smarts, your brains. I need to be alert. Right? And then he's, oh, yes, he puts down the bottle and seizes a cutlass. Right, remember, this is a cutlass. And he seizes a cutlass. He grabs a cutlass. Then, looking toward the, What the hell is that? The folksal? I have no idea what that word is. Folksal. Oops. I've never seen that before. It has apostrophes and everything. Folksal. All right. Your job watching this video is to look up this word and write in the comments what it is because I have no idea. Anyways, then leaning, looking towards the folksal where the drunken roistering still goes on. It must be these guys, right? They're a pile of the pirates. I don't know. And then he says, ah, you sing and carouse, little lambs, I'm off to the magazine. Again, I don't really know what the magazine is, but I guess it's back there. And also this word, I don't know. This is one, two, three old words. But he's saying, you stay there and sing, I'm gonna go do something different. I don't know. Let's keep going. You know, of course, the magazine in a ship is where they store the gunpowder and shot. Oh, there you go. That's what the magazine is. It's the place where they store the gunpowder, which makes things go explode and shot are the cannonballs the big heavy things to explode and shoot out and so he goes down the stairs into the magazine and he pulls out this fuse this rope here it is here there the party won't be complete without some fireworks so what he's going to do is make things go Right, explode. And he's going to light this with fire. And then says, now I must make haste. There's just time for me to leave the ship before she goes up. Here's some good words in here. To go up is to go up in flames, to go explode with fire and, right? But he must make haste. He has to hurry. Let's go. I gotta get out of here. I have to go faster. He has just enough time to leave before she goes up. But, oh no! So I've caught you! He's caught. He's surprised. So, dog, you blow us sky high. That's a phrase you might hear. To blow something sky high is to explode something all the way to the sky. Well, you won't have that pleasure. I'll skin you alive, he says. Before I even douse that fuse. So to skin someone alive is another way to say to kill them, right? And the idea is that you take off their skin while they're still alive. You skin them alive. And then he'll do it so quickly, I'll do it before I even douse that fuse. So this is the fuse here, and he's going to put it out, he's going to step on it and douse it. To douse is to put out, like that, like a fire or a candle. You don't need to know that word, it's not very common, but it's used here to douse the flame. By Lucifer, I'll shave your beard, you porcupine! And I'll pluck those feathers, squawking, Poppin' Jay! Fancy dress, Freebooter! Fresh water, Pirate! The hell is that, Pithon? Pithon Canthropus? Anyway, they're fighting and yelling insults at each other. Ching! Ching! Ching! Ching! Ching! Right now they have this battle and the feather flies off his head and the fuse is still going and we see there's the powder there and they're fighting in the magazine but we'll have to figure out what happens next in the next episode. We're going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much for watching and enjoying. Make sure you subscribe and comment below with how it went and what the hell that word means. Remember, there are transcripts for all episodes on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye.
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