Tintin in: Red Rackham's Treasure #1
Tintin in: Red Rackham's Treasure
Episode 1
Beginner
Hi, my name is Ben. Welcome to Ben's Language Lab. Stories are one of the best ways to improve at a language, and stories with pictures are even better. So today, we're going to be reading a comic together. This video and series is meant for English beginners. If you need, there are subtitles available, or you can see the entire transcript on benslanguagelab.com. But of course, learners of any level are more than welcome. Make sure you subscribe to the channel for more videos like this one. Your job right now is just to watch, listen, and enjoy. We're starting to read Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure. This is a second book in a series, or comic, rather. There are two comics that are the same story. I just finished reading Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn, which you can see the entire series of by clicking the link in the description. But let's start with Red Rackham's treasure. So on the cover here we see that there's Tintin inside what looks to be a submarine whale thing. We see Tintin and Snowy and around we have things like kelp. All this is kelp. There's even more sea plants, more kelp, seaweed. There's some fish here. There's even a jellyfish. It is some more fish in the background. And we see that the title is on a piece of parchment, just like in the last series. So, let's get started with Red Rackham's treasure. Here it starts. Red Rackham's treasure. Here's what we're looking for. There's his treasure in a treasure chest. opens and you have everything, all the treasure inside. But we're starting at The Anchor. The Anchor is the name of this bar. And a bar is where you go to drink, right? And so we see a man in a black suit walking up to the bar called The Anchor and he opens it and says, moaning. He says to everybody, right in the morning, right? Is what it must be. And we see a man here smoking a cigarette and with some some kind of drink in his hand oops drink in his hand and There's a coat on the wall and a hat hung up. Ahoy there Bill says a man off in the corner This must be Bill who's walking into the bar Good hello George. How are yourselves yourself? Not bad and you still a ship's cook? So now the men are talking a little bit, and it looks like they're both sailors. Sailors are people that work on boats or ships. An anchor, by the way, is one of these things that you might throw down to the bottom of the ocean to anchor the ship in place. When something is anchored, it can't move. And so an anchor stops the ship from floating away. Still the same, I'm sailing aboard the Sirius in a few days with Captain Haddock and Tintin. Know them?" Tintin? Captain Haddock, I certainly do. There's been plenty of talk about them over the business of the Bird Brothers. But Sirius? She's a trawler, isn't she? Aren't you going fishing? Are you going fishing?" he asks. And so we're getting a little bit of backstory on what's happening. So we remember from last time that they're going to go on a boat called the Sirius, which is a trawler. And after all that business with the bird brothers, right? Business can be like money where you buy and sell things, right? You pay with money for services. But also business can be what like happenings between people or events, right? So this is the business of what happened, right? So you might also hear somebody say, mind your own business, right? That's your own business, not mine, right? Or keep to your own business, basically. And so they're renting a trawler called the Sirius. A trawler is a slow boat that is meant for looking for things or for fishing. And then he says yes, but it's not ordinary fish. We're after its treasure. He says What's that you say says the other man? They're looking for treasure Then we see a man here with a hat and a big coat. He's drinking something. He's taking notes He's writing things down already. He's taking notes and He also has a cigarette in his mouth And the man says, well, it's like this. There's a treasure that belonged to a pirate, Red Rackham, who was killed long ago by Sir Francis Haddock aboard a ship called the Unicorn. Tintin and Captain Haddock found some old parchments, dot, dot, dot, written by Sir Francis, who escaped from the ship. They know just where the Unicorn sank. And I'll tell you the rest later. These walls have ears, he says. And so he's telling the man about what happened and what they're going to do. They're looking for treasure, how they found it, yada, yada, all this stuff. But then at the end, he says, I'll tell you the rest later, these walls have ears. He doesn't mean the literal walls, right? Here's the wall, like here's my wall. Not talking about the literal walls having ears, it's a phrase or a saying to talk about this place has people listening, right? And so this guy is listening to their conversation. And so he says these walls have ears because it's like this bar, the anchor has people listening to our conversation. He's not necessarily saying that this person literally has ears. He's saying these people are listening to our conversation. And so there's actually a note down here that says, see the secret of the unicorn to remind you to go back to the last series we just did and read that. So now we're in the next day. So the next day we are starting with, we see Haddock again, here he is. And this man is reading the newspaper and we see somebody yelling, daily reporter, daily reporter. That's the newspaper, he's selling newspapers. And so Haddock comes by and says, here, and hands him some money. Thanks. A daily reporter, read all about it, he says. And that's a phrase you might hear when people are trying to get you to buy something with news, because you can read all about what happened. thundering typhoons, billions of blistering barnacles. He's reading the newspaper and he's cursing. What happened? What does it say? He's walking with the newspaper held very close to his face. He's walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, and whap, smacks right into a pole, a pole with lots of advertisements on it. And then it says, read the Daily Reporter for news which hits you. which is funny because he's reading the Daily Reporter and he just got hit by a pole, or he walked into it. They're all alike, these journalists. I wonder what Tintin will say about this. And so now his head hurts and he's reading something about Tintin and Haddock, it appears. I also just noticed he has an anchor on his shirt. That is an anchor on his shirt. It's not a letter I, it's an anchor like this. It's a little smaller. There we go. It's an anchor on his shirt. And so now we see that we're going back to Tintin's place and he says, journalists, they're always the same. We could have done without all this publicity. Publicity is when people in the public know about what you're doing. And journalists are people that write about news. Whoops, that is not the word journalists. And so he's saying that journalists are always doing the same thing. They're writing stories, right? And they didn't want this publicity. They didn't want everybody to know what's going on with them. So now here we have the news article. Red Rackham's treasure. The forthcoming departure of the trawler Sirius is arousing speculation in seafaring circles. Despite the close secrecy which is being maintained, our correspondent understands that the object of the voyage is nothing less than a search for treasure. This treasure, once the hoard of the pirate ship Red Rackham, lies in the ship Unicorn, sunk at the end of the 17th century. Tintin, the famous reporter whose sensational intervention in the Bird Case made headline news, and his friend Captain Haddock have discovered the exact resting place of the Unicorn. So basically, it's everything that happened in the last story is now public for everybody to know. Some good words in here, forthcoming, or something that is coming in the future, right? So go forth is go forward, basically. Departure, right, is leaving. So the upcoming or the leaving of this ship that is coming soon arouses speculation. To arouse is to bring up, right? So there was no speculation before and now it's starting to happen. Speculation is when people make guesses or they try to figure things out about something. So they're wondering, how did they find the exact location? What is the treasure? That's all speculation. You don't know for sure, so you're guessing. um, seafaring circles, um, a circle literally is one of these things, right? That's an oval. A circle literally is this, right? That's a circle. Um, but a circle of people is a group, right? And so it can be a larger group, right? So a circle of English, um, in the English learning circle would be everybody that's learning English should have as in online or as a community would be in a circle. Seafaring is a person that goes to sea. And so a seafaring circle are people that work on boats, that cook, people that own boats, that sort of thing, right? Anybody that works around the sea and might be a sailor. Excuse me. Despite the close secrecy, which is being maintained, so they're trying to keep things secret, right? Our correspondent understands that the object of the voyage, so correspondent is just a fancy way of saying the journalist, right, the person that told him this. that the object of the voyage is nothing less than a search for treasure. The purpose, what they're looking for, what they're doing is searching for treasure. This treasure wants the hoard of a pirate red raccoon, of the pirate red raccoon. A hoard is what somebody collects, right? All of somebody's stuff. Usually it's a lot of it because they like having more stuff. It's in the unicorn, we know this, which sunk, we also know this. And Tintin and Captain Haddock found it, and they made sensational, or no, sorry, Tintin has sensational, or Tintin is, what? Who's, oh, I just can't read, sorry. Who's sensational intervention in the bird case. I was reading the same line. Sanitation was amazing, wonderful, awesome. Intervention is what they were doing. They were intervening, they were getting in the middle of things, they were learning about the bird case, and they made headline news. Headline news is, this is a headline, so like the title of something, but headline news is the biggest title on the page. So when you open up the newspaper, you see the headline news right there. And they discover the exact resting place of the treasure. And so, of course, people are going to come knocking. Ring, ring. This man rings the doorbell. We have to go to the next page now. And then he opens the door. Mr. Tintin? Yes? Mr. Tintin, I see from this morning's paper that you are going to try and find Red Rackham's treasure. Is that so? He says. So he's asking about the newspaper. Is it true? Is that so? Tintin says, yes it is, but... Good. In that case, I shall accompany you. As for the treasure, I shall be satisfied with half share. Here is my card. And so this man wants to go with them. He wants to accompany them on the trip, go with them on the trip to look for the treasure. And he'll be satisfied, he'll be okay with a half share. That's half the treasure, right? One out of two, one half, right? So here's all the treasure. He wants half of it. He came up to Tindin, has done nothing yet, and says, I would like half these. And Tintin looks at his card, which is his business card. I don't think I have a business card, but it has your information, your name, your phone number, what you do, that sort of thing. So Tintin looks at it and he goes, is that really your name? So it seems, young man. So Tintin recognizes his name. He knows his name. His name must be something famous or well-known. Look, Captain, he says, giving Captain the card. Blistering barnacle, blistering barnacles, he says. His name is Red Rackham. But if I'm not mistaken, sir, your name is simply Red Rackham. Red is just a nickname. In which case, I see no connection between you and Red Rackham the pirate. And so it seems like this man is trying to claim that he is related to the original Red Rackham, so the treasure does belong to him. Then we hear another Mr. Tintin, I demand my share of the treasure. I am Red Rackham's sole descendant. Excuse me. I am no, he's not. I am it's me. Don't listen to him I'm the one I am and here's my family tree says this man with a family tree here and So these are all people claiming to be related to red Rackham meaning that part of the treasure is theirs which Probably isn't true. I don't believe any of it. I And then Haddock says, leave this to me. We'll soon see if there's a real Rackham along the crew. And then he says, you're all descendants of Red Rackham, are you? Good. Well, I'm a descendant from Sir Francis Haddock, who killed Red Rackham in single combat and blew up the ship. And there are times, and then he's rolling up his sleeves, right? He's getting ready to fight. And he says, when my ancestors' fighting blood begins to boil, And he's ready to fight them. So what happens here is he's saying that, oh, you're all descendants of Red Rackham? Sure you are. You know who I am? I'm a descendant of Sir Francis Haddock, who killed Red Rackham. We saw that in the last series. In single combat, one-on-one, man versus man. Right, that's single combat. And there are times, sometimes I want to fight. Right? And so he scares them all away by saying that he'll fight them. Avast, freshwater pirates! What's going on up there? Says one of the Thompsons as they come up. And then, ahhh! Everybody comes crashing down the stairs to run away from Haddock. And, of course, they're left there together. What a stampede. Looks like a bunch of wild elephants, they're saying, because they just got stampeded. A stampede is a bunch of animals or things running together, right, making a big just mass of moving creatures. And so he's calling them a bunch of wild elephants. Elephants are the animal with a big trunk, big nose. That was a terrible elephant, but you know what I mean. A real herd of elephants. To be precise, a real herd of elephants. Of course, they're idiots. A herd, by the way, is a group, right? A stampede, but not moving. It's just a general group of animals. And there are your records, fancy dress freebooters. He says, throwing down all of the books in their family trees, their records, right? If you keep records of something, it's your notes, your family tree, your history, that sort of thing. And of course, these fall right on the heads of the two Thompsons. And then we see here that there's another ring at the door. There you are, that's got rid of the gang of thieves. Ring! Another! Wait, I'll go, says Tintin. Is that you, Tintin? It's us, Thompson and Thompson. Could you give us a hand? A wild elephant dropped something on our heads, they're saying, because they're idiots, right? So the things fell on their heads and it covered their eyes with their hats. And so they're asking Tintin for help, of course. Come in, he says. We'll see to that. We'll help you out. And so as they're trying to get the hats off of their heads, we hear a ring. Ring, ring. And then the man says he was here and now says, I'd like to speak to Mr. Tintin. Why, no doubt your name happens to be Red Rackham. Yes? No, I'm asking if you're called Red Rackham. Oh, the man says. What's your name? He yells at him. Please speak a bit louder. I'm hard of hearing. Sorry, that's not Haddock yelling. He says, please speak a bit louder. I'm hard of hearing. Your name, he says very loudly. gone away what a pity never mind i'll come again i particularly wanted to speak to mr tintin himself he says um but we're gonna have to figure out why he wants to talk to tintin why why tintin is so important to this deaf man deaf means he can't hear um because that's why he heard this right he heard gone away after your name. So he's he's deaf. But we're gonna have to figure out why he wants to talk to Tintin in the next episode. We're gonna leave it there for today. Thank you so much for watching and enjoying this episode of this first episode of Red Rackham's Treasure. Make sure to subscribe so that you'll see the next episode when it comes out in a few days. Remember, there are transcripts for everything on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you in the next one. Bye!
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