Name: Learn English with PENGUINS of Madagascar — Taking Over the Ship
Uploaded: 2025-05-26T06:52:56.000Z
Duration: 19 min 23 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippopotamus.

Basic passive voice

The friends are captured after trying to escape from the Central Park Zoo. Under pressure from animal rights activists, the zoo sends them and other animals by ship to a wildlife preserve in

Kenya. During the voyage, the penguins escape from their crate and hijack the ship, trying to redirect it to Antarctica. To hijack a voyage, create a wildlife preserve. These words are included in a deck of flashcards that we created for this lesson. All you need to do is click the link in the video description to get your vocabulary practice with all the words you learned today on our RealLife

English app for free. I'll tell you more about it later, but now this is how the lesson will work.

First, we'll watch the clip with the subtitles. Then, you'll learn the key vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. And finally, you'll test your comprehension by watching the entire scene one last time, this time without subtitles. And I'll ask some quiz questions to see how well you've understood everything. Let's watch the first clip from the movie Madagascar.

Progress report. It's an older code, Skipper. I can't make it out.

You, hire mammal. Can you read? No, Phil can read, though. Phil?

Ship to Kenya. Wildlife preserve, Africa. Africa? That ain't gonna fly. Rico.

You might have noticed that the Penguins acts like a special operations team, with each member having a specific role or skill. Skipper is their leader. In English, Skipper typically means the captain of a ship or boat, and it's often used informally to refer to someone in charge.

Kowalski is the brains of the operation. His name comes from a common Polish surname, which makes him sound like a clever scientist or engineer. Rico is the team's explosives and weapons expert, and Private is the youngest and most innocent of the group. In the military,

Private is the lowest rank for soldiers. By the way, if you are new to this channel, please subscribe and hit the bell down below not to miss our newest lessons, because every week on this channel we publish lessons just like this one to help you understand your favorite movies and TV series without getting lost, without missing the jokes, and without subtitles.

So, here we see Skipper is asking Kowalski for a progress report. A progress report is an update of the current status of a mission or project. It can be used in various contexts, such as tracking work or school projects, or checking personal goals like progress in fitness programs.

It's an older code, Skipper. I can't make it out.

Kowalski said he couldn't make it out. To make out is to understand or decipher something, especially when it's unclear or difficult to see or hear. Like in this example from Aladdin.

Hey, I think there's something written here, but it's hard to make out.

And this in Toy Story. Pescat, what do you see? Oh, it's hard to make out.

And by the way, if you hear the phrase making out in movies, it could also be referring to kissing, which is a slang meaning of this phrase. Let's practice the connected speech with this phrase. It's an older code, Skipper. I can't make it out.

First of all, we have a flap T or this D sound in the word it. Make it out.

And the K sound from make gets linked to the following word. Make it out. Make it out.

Listen and repeat. It's an older code, Skipper. I can't make it out. I can't make it out.

You, higher mammal, can you read? Skipper then turns for help to a chimpanzee, as they are known for their intelligence compared to other animals. He calls him a higher mammal as an informal way to refer to his more advanced brain functions. A mammal is a type of animal that feeds its babies milk. Humans, dogs, and monkeys are mammals. Birds, fish, and reptiles are non-mammals. Phil, another chimpanzee, uses sign language to explain what's written on the box.

And the first chimpanzee translates it back to Skipper that the ship is headed to a wildlife preserve in Kenya. Wildlife refers to animals living in the wild, and a wildlife preserve is a protected area where animals live freely in their natural habitat.

Some of the biggest and most famous preserves are the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, the Yellowstone National Park in the US, and the Amazon Rainforest reserves in South America.

What do you think this phrase means? Ain't going to fly.

Penguins cannot fly. The ship is broken. This is not acceptable.

Ain't going to fly is a colloquial expression, meaning it won't work, or it's not acceptable.

Skipper is rejecting the idea of going to Africa, saying it's not part of their plan.

Trying to avoid your duties, huh? Well, that just ain't gonna fly.

Africa, that ain't gonna fly. Ain't is an informal contraction for am not, is not, and here it drops its T sound in the NT letters combination.

We also hear gonna instead of going to. Ain't gonna fly.

And finally, we've got here a flap T or D sound in the word that, and it gets linked to the following word. That ain't gonna fly.

Africa, that ain't gonna fly. That ain't gonna fly.

Ain't gonna fly. What a great expression to use in your conversation next time you want to disagree with a suggested plan. Do you think you can remember this idiom well enough?

Because it happens often during the conversations that you know you learned this idiom or this expression, but now when you want to use it, your brain goes blank. You pause. You try to remember.

Then you feel embarrassed or frustrated, and we don't want you to feel frustrated.

So we created the RealLife English app to help you exactly with that.

With never forgetting the words and expressions you learned with our lessons.

As I mentioned, every lesson like this one comes with a deck of flashcards.

And by practicing just 10-15 minutes daily with them on our app, you'll be able to transfer these new words from your short-term into your long-term memory.

Plus, with the spaced repetition software, you will retain vocabulary more effectively by reviewing these new words at carefully timed intervals just when you're about to forget them.

And of course, you can use all these words in the conversations through video calls connecting to the students of our RealLife English community. I highly recommend you check it out.

The app is free to download. Just look for RealLife English in the App Store or Google Play or simply click the link in the description below. It's free to get started. So go and download it now. At the end of this scene, we see Rico pulling out a paperclip, making a shape that looks like a key, and unlocking the crate. These sturdy boxes or containers used for transporting various items are called crates. So the penguins attack the guard and get into the captain's deck to knock him out. They are now in control of the ship as the new crew.

Meanwhile, Alex and Marty keep arguing inside their crates. Let's watch this scene.

Don't make me come up there. I'd get the whooping on both of y'all.

By the way, Marty, your black and white stripes, they cancel each other out.

Hey, stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

It's no good, Skipper. I don't know the codes.

Don't give me excuses. Give me results. Navigation.

All right. Let me think. And shut him up.

That's quite a heated argument with everyone talking over each other.

Let's try to figure out what they're saying and learn some useful phrases.

I was the star in the greatest city on Earth.

If you didn't watch the movie, can you guess what city he's referring to when Alex says

I was the star in the greatest city on Earth?

Alex refers to New York City, highlighting its importance and greatness.

As the star attraction at the Central Park Zoo, he was adored and admired by visitors.

Now he feels that Marty's plan to escape has ruined his life.

Their friend Glory is asking everyone to calm down and talk politely instead of fighting, or to be civil, meaning to behave respectfully, avoiding conflict or rude behavior.

Whatever happens, Abe, I hope we can be civil.

This is a better product, and I'm the CEO, and I'm gonna say this is where we go.

If the people loved you, it's only because they didn't know the real you!

So here Glory is telling Alex and Marty to stop arguing.

An alternative phrase would be to knock it off.

Check it out in the example from The Simpsons.

To get the whooping would be to receive a scolding or punishment, sometimes physical.

So Gloria, like a big mama, threatens to punish the boys if they don't stop fighting.

But wait, Marty, your black and white stripes, they cancel each other out!

Alex jokes about Marty's black and white stripes being opposites, making him nothing.

To cancel each other out means to negate or neutralize each other, leaving no effect.

You might understand it better with these two examples.

Bart, I'm impressed with what you did in there.