Tintin in: The Black Island #10
Tintin in: The Black Island
Episode 10
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 you subscribe for more videos like this one. For now, your job is to watch, listen, and enjoy. We're reading Tintin and the Black Island. 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. If you remember to last episode, we were talking about, or we had just seen Tintin fly away on the plane, and Thompson and Thompson had went with him, but they lost their hats. because Tintin is chasing after the bad guys, the crooks, Milla and Ivan. And so Tintin is following them. So let's see what happens. And so now Tintin had just taken off. He just took off with the airplane and Thompson and Thompson were very angry with him. And so they say, come on, after them, that other machine over there, So they see another machine, another airplane, and they run to it. And they say, we're police officers. Start her up. We're taking off right away. And then he says, but sir, I, and so they're claiming, we are police officers. We can tell you what to do. Start her up. And that means to turn on the plane. And it starts to go. Start her up. We're taking off. So to take off is when you go. Right off into the air that's taking off right now right away But he says but sir I and then they say that's enough no ifs or buts we're the police see and we're commandeering this plane and you fly it and then the other one says police understand and And so what's happening is they are commandeering the plane. To commandeer is when somebody of higher power or authority, like a police officer, or somebody with a badge of some kind to say, I have the power. I am commandeering this plane, train, car, whatever it might be that's when they take over control and say, I need to use this. In this case, they're commandeering the plane. Except for this guy will fly it. He will be the one to drive and to fly the plane. They also said no ifs or buts, right? Because you can say, but sir, but there's no buts. And then the if would be, if something happens, right? No, no, no, we're going. So no ifs or buts. And then they're in, they've commandeered the plane. They've taken off right away. And he says, full throttle pilot, right? This is the pilot, right? Pilot is somebody who flies a plane. And the throttle is the thing that you open to make the plane go faster, right? And so you say full throttle when you go as fast as possible. And so in this case, you're going as quickly as you can. Full throttle, pilot. And they also say, you can cut out the aerobatics. Aerobatics are when you're going in a plane going all around, right? You want to go normal like this, but they're going up and they're going down all over the place. And he says, I'm sorry, sir. I'm doing my best. It's the first time I've flown. I'm just the mechanic. He's not actually a pilot. Uh-oh. He doesn't know how to fly a plane. He just fixes them, right? And that's what he was doing right here. He was in the plane fixing something, and they told him to fly it. But he doesn't know how. I don't know how to fly a plane. And so now we see come back to Tintin, right? So that's Tintin right there and his pilot, and they're in the plane going normally. And they say, we'll soon be on their tail, unless, uh-oh, and they go into a cloud, right? This is a cloud here, and they can't see, right? It's all hard to see, they're inside of a cloud. Let's see if we can see another cloud here. It doesn't look like there's any other clouds in the sky. But the clouds are the things up in the air. They're usually white or gray. And they're full of water or other different kinds of chemicals. And it makes it hard to see, right? So they're running into a cloud. And so now we see the pilot, Snowy and Tintin. And he says, rotten visibility. We've lost sight of them. When you say rotten like this, it typically is like a way of saying darn. Darn visibility or terrible visibility, in this case, is probably what he means, right? I can't see visibility. There's no visibility. And so he says, have to land. We're near the coast. Don't want to drop in the drink. And so the coast is, remember, where the water, so the ocean meets the land, right? That part there is the coast, right? So if we have water here, and this is land, right, this part is all the coast. And right now they're close to the coast, so if they fly out over the coast, they might fall, they might drop into the water. The drink is a slang way of saying the ocean because it's very much larger than a drink. And so it's not actually, you can't really drink it, but it's a bit of a slang way to say the ocean. And so we see them flying in the cloud, but they can't see anything. They have to get out and have to land. And so here he says, doesn't look too rough. I'll have a go. And so he's talking about the landing spots. If it's too rough, they'd go... And they'd have a rough landing. However, it doesn't look too bad. It looks okay. I'll try. I'll have a go. To have a go is a way to say, I'll try something. I'll see if it works. I'll have a go. And then he says, oh, a wall, right? They hit a wall. We're done for. And so when you're done for it means it's over you're gonna fail lose die Something like that. It's over and they Hit the wall head-on Directly and the plane sort of smashes into pieces, right? We see these going there the wing comes off the wheel everything is kind of exploding your crash crack and there's a shepherd. A man hears them and he goes, huh? And he runs over. He has a pipe in his mouth and he has a sort of cane with a hook on the end, right? That's a hook on the end right there. And so he runs over to see what happens. And he sees the plane crashed nose down, right? It's nose. The nose is the front of the plane, right? So this is the nose. And it's crashed nose down into the ground. And he goes, oof. And then the pilot yells to Tintin, you all right? Are you okay? And then we hear the man say, oof, the pure wee laddie, he's fallen into the brambles. He must be Irish or Scottish, I'm actually not sure, but he has an accent, a thick accent. The pure is poor, so I think, the poor wee laddie, wee laddie like little boy, little man, he's followed into the brambles. These are the brambles here. and they sort of, they sting you, right, they hurt, ow, it hurts Tintin, right, we see he has cuts on his body, right, he's got some cuts there, his clothes are all torn, right, torn, and so now we see him, he says, come in the house, I'll give you some more clothes isn't that far? and so now he's saying come into the house I don't know why it says ben but he's saying come over to my house I'll give you some more clothes some of my clothes it's not far And so he has a bit of an accent. A near thing, he says here, and then that's putting it mildly. And so this must mean that it was, they almost died. That was dangerous, what they did. And he's saying that's putting it mildly to say it's a near thing, right? Because that's something that's close to happening, but this was a big, they crashed, right? They crashed their plane. But now the pilot hears something and he says, listen, that's the sound of a plane. And then Tintin says, you won't be able to see it in this mist, right? He hears a plane, but he says, I'm not gonna be able to see it because of the mist. Mist is when there's kind of a lot of water in the air, right? So it's kind of wet in the air. During the summer, when you might go to somewhere really hot, they might have misters that are pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss And that's the playing with Thompson and Thompson. And they say, we positively insist. Put us down. And so then that's a way of positively insist is requiring land, land. But they're being very polite about it. To put us down in this case is when you put down a plane, when you land, right? And then he says, but I keep on telling you, I don't know how to land. He's not a pilot. He doesn't know how to land nice and easy. And so then they say, the controls, you idiot. Don't take your hands off the wheel. Because he was driving and went, I don't know how to land. He took his hands off the wheel. And so he puts them back on. And then they say, whew, I thought my last hour had come. Your last hour is right before you die. And then to be precise, mine too, right? So they're both very scared. And then the nice shepherd farmer man says, in you go, right? In you go inside the house, right? Come on inside. And so now here we see, you'll find all you need in that a room. Again, my accent isn't amazing, but he's saying, you will find all you need in the other room. Right, and you notice he says, instead of, I, instead of all you, I, because it's pretty clear what this means. You find all you need in the other room. Thanks, says Tintin. And Snowy goes, huh, what's that? And then here he says, all right, fine, I'm coming down. That's all right. I think that's just old, old English. And so he's coming down, and ta-da! He's all dressed up like a Scottishman. Oh! He sees something. What does he see? Snowy, up to your old tricks again! Because Snowy started to drink whiskey again. Right, he found more of the whiskey. He was drinking the whiskey. And so Tintin picks him up and goes to spank him. And let this be a lesson, you drunken disobedient dog. Right, drunken is a way to, when somebody is drunk, right, they're a drunken, they are a drunken person, right, you have to add the thing there. And disobedient, he doesn't listen to Tintin. Right, when you're obedient, you do what you're told. Wash the dishes, help me, okay. But Snowy didn't listen. And then here we see the pilot is talking to the man, and he says, that certainly seems to be the best solution. And then he tells Tintin, our friend has suggested that we spend the night here. We sleep here today. It's getting late, right? It's getting dark, right? Outside here, it's getting late, right? And so they should sleep at this nice farmer's place. And then Tintin says, that's an invitation we'll certainly accept. How very kind of you. How very kind of you, sir. Thank you. An invitation is when somebody asks you to do something. Hey, do you want to have some food together, you and me? Hey, do you want to sleep here, sleep here tonight? That's an invitation, a very nice invitation, very kind of this man. He's very nice. And so then we see the next morning, right? And now the sun has risen again. It's light outside. And we see Tintin. He's eating something, maybe some porridge or something for breakfast. But we don't really know what it is. And we see on the TV. The news is saying, the dense fog that blanketed the British Isles during the night caused a number of accidents. Off the Scottish coast this morning, fishermen from Kiltoch discovered the floating wreckage of a light aircraft registered G-A-R-E-I. There was no trace of the crew who are presumed drowned. So let's break that down. So, the dense fog, that mist that we talked about yesterday. Fog is a way of saying mist, but it's really hard to see. It's really, really dense. It blanketed the British Isles. That's a way of saying that something covered something else. Not really a blanket, but it was just covering everything. And it caused some accidents, some crashes, right? Like this crash, um, off the Scottish coast where we just talked about the coast, some fishermen, right? Those are people that fish, right? They throw their rod and they pull in some fish that you can eat. And they found the wreckage, right? This is wreckage right here. This is wreckage when something is just totally destroyed. It is wrecked. They found some wreckage with the registration this, G-A-R-E-I, and there was no trace of the crew. Trace is when you can find something, right? Tintin always has a little trace to follow, right? Maybe a footprint or a person or anything to show the people are alive, but there was no trace whatsoever. And so they're presumed, they're assumed, everybody thinks in their head that they drowned. When you drown, that's when you die from being underwater. When you start to breathe in water, that's called drowning. And so everybody thinks that the crew drowned. And then he says, G-A-R-E-I, the plane we followed, the same registration. Well, that puts paid to that, they're dead, poor devils. And so the pilot is saying that they were following the crooks, the thieves in that plane. And then they paid to that, that puts paid to that, that means it's done, it's finished, we're all done. They're dead. Poor devils, right? Poor devils. That means that he feels a little bad because they died. That's not good. And then Tintin says, maybe, but I'd like to be absolutely sure. I'm going to Kiltoch to look around. He's not convinced yet. He wonders, hmm, are they really dead? I don't know. And so Tintin is going to go to Kiltoch, which is a place in Scotland, and he's going to, hmm, look around for them. And then the nice man is saying, it's no above 15 miles to Kiltoch, but mind you keep to the pass through to Glen. It's 15 miles, right? Kind of far, but he can walk it. He can walk there. But remember to stay to the path, right? The path is where you walk along, right? You want to go this way on the path and not through into the forest or other parts, especially as you go through the glen, which is what they call, I think it's just forest, I'm not really sure. But he's telling him to be careful, Tintin, be careful when you're going to Kiltoch. And it looks like Tintin and Snowy are ready to go. However, we'll have to see what happens in the next episode. We're going to leave it there for today. Thank you for watching and enjoying. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and comment below with how it went. What did you learn? And remember, transcripts for all episodes are available on benslanguagelab.com. I'll see you next time. Bye.
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