Learn English with Video Games: Papers, Please #1
Papers, Please
Episode 1
Intermediate
Hello, everybody. My name is Ben, and welcome to a brand new series here on Ben's Language Lab. This is a different sort of series than we've ever done before. In this one, I'm going to be playing a video game called Papers, Please. This is a wonderful story-based game that I played many, many years ago, but I also found very useful when learning, or as I'm learning Czech. I watched an entire playthrough of it, and it was very easy to understand, interesting, and I found myself wanting to watch more. And so I thought, why not do that for you, an English learner? And so, we're going to be playing this game together, we're going to experience the story together, and hopefully learn some new and interesting words. The only thing that I'm going to do is turn on easy mode, because my goal here is more to help you with English than to actually have to focus and play, because the game can be pretty hard. So I'm going to turn that on to make it easier so I can take more time to explain words or things like that. Some things to keep in mind. If you want subtitles, they're available. Those can be very helpful. And you can also find the transcripts and a lot more stuff on benslanguagelab.com. So let's jump into it and see what we learn. So we're going to start a new game here. And here we have a letter. Congratulations. October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. So here we see we're in October 1982. A lottery is when a bunch of people have their name in a hat or something and you put your hand inside and you pull out a random name and you say, Ben, you have won. That's a lottery, right? A random drawing. And so the labor lottery is when you put your name in to get a job, right? So in this October 1982, jobs are hard to find. And so people will put their name into a lottery to try to win a job, basically. And so the October labor lottery is complete. And my name was pulled. My name was pulled out and I now have a job. For immediate placement, report to the Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. So here we have a map and we're immediately going to start, we're immediately going to be placed into our position, our work now. So we have to go report, we have to go talk to the Ministry of Admission. which is the government body of some kind that we must talk to. Here, right there in this circle, at the Grestin border checkpoint. So a border is between two countries, right? So here's, let's say, the United States and Mexico. That's a border. And this is a fake made up place in this game called the Grestin border. And then a checkpoint is a place where you go through to like talk to the government, say, here are my papers. Here is how I'm passing through. I have my passport, that sort of thing. They're called checkpoints because it's a certain point where you have to check in with whoever's in charge, basically. And so, we're going to be working at the Grestin border checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a class 8 dwelling. So here's our apartment building and we're going to be given an apartment. And so in this country, it is difficult to find housing. It can be expensive or maybe you can't even buy it. It's going to be provided for you by your job or something like that. And so I am going to live with my family in East Grestin. And it tells me to expect a class 8 dwelling, which is a dwelling, by the way, is a home. It's like a fancy name for a home or an apartment or something. And class 8 doesn't have a specific meaning, but it's probably not great. And so this is the country we're in, Arstotzka. Glory to Arstotzka, is what it says. Let's get started. So here we are, here's the newspaper in the morning, the truth of our Arstotzka, November 23rd, 1982. So this is taking place 18, 38, 40, 42 years ago, I think. No, that's not right. 32? Math is hard. Something like that. A while ago. November. So that's the month. There's no charge for the paper. It's a free paper. And we see that there's some news. The Grestin border checkpoint opens at last after six long years. So it was closed for six years. Nobody could cross the border. It was illegal. Can the Ministry of Admission keep us safe? And that's the big question. Are we safe in our country? So let's walk to work then. We're gonna walk to work. There we are. That's us walking right to work. November 23rd, 1982. So Arstotzka, Ministry of Admission, official bulletin. So a bulletin is like this, right? A paper that's giving you information for your job, that sort of thing. Inspector, that's us. Inspector, welcome to your new checkpoint position at Grestin border checkpoint. That's our new job. Stamp passport, entry visa, and return documents to entrant. That is our job. We have to stamp the passport, entry visa, and return the documents to the entrant. The entrants are the people trying to enter. Entry is restricted to our Arstotzkan citizens only, which means we're only allowed to admit, we're only allowed to have enter people that are from our country, that are Arstotzkan. So deny all foreigners. We have to send them away. Goodbye, no foreigners allowed. Glory to Arstotzka. And here we have a stamp. Don't sit on my keyboard. Sorry. My cat is right here. He's almost going to sit on my keyboard and ruin everything. Here we have a stamp, and we'll check the next page. So it says, pay attention to passport nationality, right? That's right down here it's saying. Okay, good to know. Here we are. Here's the inspector booth. So this is telling us how to play the game. So there's the shutter here. OK. That's the shutter. It shuts, right? We have the counter. That's this section here. Great. So this is the rule book. OK. The rule book, audio transcription. Great. The audio transcript for this episode is on benslanguagelab.com. This is the bulletin storage. OK, that goes right there. Cool. And then we have the time and date. It is November 23, 1982. And I put the date specifically in American order. So it's month, day, year, so that you can get a little bit of practice with that. Month, day, year. And then let's see. Here's the news. No real news. Great, we already read that. OK. We have to admit all of the citizens of Arstotzka, and we have to deny all foreigners. Papers, please. Finally, I can return home, she says. And she is from Arstotzka, so I'm going to hit approved here. Great. Have a nice day, ma'am. Glory to Arstotzka. Thank you, she says. And so now we click this again to bring the next person in. Next, we say. And we have another woman here. We ask her papers, please. And she says, this checkpoint is smaller than I expected. Well, I didn't make it. Why do you? Oh, but she's from Impor. She is not from Arstotzka. Her passport is different, right? So we have to actually deny her. So here we go. What's your name? Mariska. Sorry, Mariska, Arstotzkans only. Next, please. And so now we have the next person coming in. Here they are. Papers, please. She says I have waited for this damn line for eight hours. I hope it was worth it She says but you're from Republica. You're not from Arstotzka. I'm sorry. I cannot permit you to enter Arstotzkans only unbelievable go to hell she says which is not very nice. I didn't make the rules I have to admit only Arstotzkans and again Helga is not from Arstotzka so I have to deny her because she's a foreigner and And it's the first day that the border checkpoint has been opened, which is a little bit too bad for her. Papers please, we ask him. It was a mistake to open this checkpoint. That's threatening. He told us that we're making a mistake and then just left. He waited in line for eight hours and then just came in to tell us that this is a bad choice, which doesn't make me feel very safe. Why is it a bad decision? I think we'll figure out a little bit more as the game goes on. Oh, look, she looks like she's actually from Arstotzka, great. Zeldris, welcome home Zeldris. Glory to Arstotzka. Next! This is the game. It gets more interesting, I promise. Oh look, another Arstotzkan citizen. His name is Nevin. He's from East Grestin as well, or that's where his passport is from at least. So, like your mustache, my dude. Looking good. Let's keep going here. We have another person. And this person is also a foreigner, this time from Kolechia. Kolechia, um, Lee, uh, Jong Lee is his name, and we have to deny him because he is a foreigner. Arstotzkans only, we say. And we have another person here. Next! We cry through these megaphones. And then we hear, oh, there's the bell for the end of the day. There is a horn to signify the end of our shifts, but we first have to let Jacqueline through in Dwarstotska because she is a citizen. Glory Dwarstotska, we say. And that's the end of the first day. So now we have to, at the end of each day, we have to, manage our savings. We have to manage how much we're spending. Manage your expenses using the check boxes below. And so we have this easy mode crutch for 20 extra points because it gets a lot more difficult, I promise. So our salary, we make 10 credits per person and we let through five people. So we have five, 50 credits. I think that's how that works. We also had $30 in savings, or 30 credits in savings, and then rent is 20, food is 20, and heat is 20. We could pay less for these, but I think it's generally good to have food and heat. Currently our entire family is living with us, our wife, our son, mother-in-law, so that's my wife's mother. mother-in-law or in-laws or whoever you get as part of your family after being married. So my mother-in-law is my mother but by marriage, so it's the mother of my wife. My uncle is my father's brother or mother's brother, so somebody that I'm one of my parents' siblings, that's an uncle or aunt if it's a woman. Here we have nothing else interesting. All we have is, there's five passports, one for each member of my family. Uncle, mother-in-law, son, wife, we each have five. We each have one passport. And yeah, so the only option we have is to go to sleep now. So there we go. All right. November 24th, 1982. The truth of Arstotzka. So the analysts up beat. So increased trade and cooperation predicted. So analysts are people that look at data numbers. So they've been analyzing the border opening, they analyze the economy, things like that, and they're feeling good. Upbeat is a good thing. That means you're feeling positive. You think that this is going to be good in the future, right? and they're predicting increased trade and cooperation. And the checkpoint is a success. So let's walk through work and see what happens. November 24th, 1982. There's the guard coming down, and our bulletin for that day. Arstotzka, Ministry of Admission, official bulletin. Inspector, from today, foreigners with a valid passport are permitted to enter. So people from other countries, if they have a valid passport, one that is good, not bad, it has to be a valid passport, they are allowed to enter. And our inspection hardware is now installed. So, if I click this button, I can see if something's wrong with their papers. And this is where the game really comes in. So, carefully check all passport information. Carefully check for discrepancies. A discrepancy is when something doesn't match, right? So, for example, So here's their weight, this says kilograms, right? So if they stand on a scale, they stand on the scale and it says, you weigh 85 kilograms, right? But if like they had on their passport that they weigh 100 kilograms, that would be a discrepancy, right? There's a problem there, they don't match, right? So that's what a discrepancy is. When there's something that's not quite matching, So, deny any entrant with inconsistent information, right? So, if their information is wrong or weird, right? So, check all pages. Inspect mode, so that's when I click this, right? There's rules and regulations. Study the rule book closely. That's this one right here. We'll look at that in a second. Glory Dvorstovska. Yeah, then I know how to use this. You'll see in a second. And that is the bulletin. Let's check this really quick. So the basic rules that we have to follow that all entrants must have a passport and all documents must be current. All documents must be up to date and correct. I can also look at a map, right? So here's Arstotzka, here we are, right there. And then here we have the country of Kolechia, Obristan, Antegria, Republika, Impor, and United Federation. So these are all the different countries that might want to enter Arstotzka. We can also look at the different passports, which is interesting. So if I want to look at Kolechia, I can see that they have these different cities, a bunch of information about that. Plus I can also check out the booth stuff, but that is everything for now. I'm going to keep this on my desk just in case, but let's start the day. Next! I cry. I yell, papers, please, I say. And here we have our foreigner that we can maybe permit. So they were born in 1948. A woman from Mergenio's expiration is next year. Everything looks fine to me. There is not a problem with your papers. Cause no trouble, I say. Next. And so we have the next person here. This seems to be another foreigner. Expiration, ooh, but okay, look here. So the expiration date of his passport is a couple of days ago. So his passport, you cannot enter using an expired document. What? This is a mistake. I just renewed it, he says. But I'm sorry, George, I cannot permit you to enter the country. Your passport is out of date. Next. Papers, please. And this is an Arstotzkan citizen. Everything's in order. 1983, 1946. Name is Alexi. Perfect. Glory to Arstotzka, let's say. He's able to go in. Uh-oh, here we go, this is a citation. This is what happens if something is wrong. And so we see that he had a non-matching photo, his photo was wrong. Whoops, I missed that. And what did this guy say? Hurry up, I'm meeting the bus soon. So he's gonna catch the bus in a moment. He looks correct, expiration is in the future. Everything looks okay. He's a little bit rude, but you know, I mean, let's check to make sure that the city is right, right? Yeah. Parandisa. Paradisna. Paradisna, yeah, that's right. Finally, he says. Also, not very nice. I'm just trying to do my job, dude. Okay, papers please. And now we have another person. She looks like her photo. That's fine. She's very tall. Almost over... 190 centimeters Nicholas Oh, no, it's a man. Sorry. It's a not a woman 1952 1984 Looks fine to me Arstotzkan citizen glory to us Arstotzka Let's keep going here to the next person what oh Invalid issuing city, okay. Last warning, there's no penalty yet. I don't have to pay the price. And this person says, what? Hello, handsome, you look bored. If you want a good time, come see us. Oh, okay. That's interesting. Her name is Nonya. Okay, Paradisna, we know that's good. 84, woman, she looks the same, 51. Okay, this one has to be good. Sorry about that. I will be around a couple months. Don't forget to visit, she says. She wants us to come to her sexy party thing. Maybe not, I don't know. I already have a wife, a kid, and a bunch of people living in my house. Okay, this is Dominic from Kolechia. Let's go to Kolechia, that's Yurko City, that's correct. 1982, oh, oh. Uh-oh, there is somebody who jumped over the border. and they're being shot at by the guard not very many times and they throw what looks to be like a bomb and explodes and there's an attack which is cutting the day short wow that was an interesting change the day was cut short by a terrorist attack progress is saved at the start of each day that's just letting us know what happens so Yeah, but we only, um, made four. Oh, that's what it is. Last time we had 10 passports go through, but this time we only made four go through correctly, which is in there five each. So that's only $20, which is not very much. Right. So we. have to spend $50 today. But that is the end of this first episode of Papers, Please. I hope that you enjoyed and you maybe learned a little something. Let me know down in the comments below what you think and I will look at them and we might do something similar like this in the future. For now, I'm thinking that this series can replace the Tintin comics on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I believe. And we can continue with other things in the other days of the week. But let me know down in the comments below what you want to see, what is helpful for you in your English learning. But that is everything from me for today. Have a fantastic rest of your day, and I will see you in the next video. Bye-bye.
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