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In which Tintin album does someone say: "We vill be needed to stay here for about 4.711 years..."?

I need the answers for a Tintin quiz.

Thanks from Sweden!

I'm not absolutely sure, but it sounds to me like 'Flight 714'.

I have no recollection of any such line ever ocurring anywhere in Tintin. You saw this in a Tintin quiz, sthlm01, or did you make up the question to see if anyone else knew the answer?

I agree that this doesn't ring a bell as being a direct line from any Tintin book I've read. I can see why Tintinrulz thought Flight 714, since Kanrokitoff has a wierd European accent (in the English translation at least). But he doesn't say "vill" instead of "will"; his Ws are pronounced normally. And he doen't say anything resembling the meaning of this line.

By elimination then, I'd guess it could be from The Lake of Sharks (the non-Hergé comic book of the animated film) which I only read once years ago and don't own. Someone on this forum would know.

Or I suppose it could be from Land of the Soviets, Congo or Alph-Art. I do own these, but haven't read them as recently or as repeatedly as the ones I know from childhood, which means I don't carry them around in my head as well as the others. Doesn't ring a bell though.

Maybe the reference to 4.711 years is also there in the original French version, in which case people who own and read them may recognise it. But either way, I'm pretty sure that it's not a line that Tintin's English translators ever used, which I guess is why all of us so far are unable to help you find the answer!

I'm not clear whether the "vill" (instead of will) is a clue that the speaker is Germanic, or if it's just a typo on your part?

My only other thought is that the odd inconsistency of saying "about" followed by such a precise decimal number sounds like Thom(p)son-speak to me, so maybe it's a Swedish version of one of their lines?

In any case, I'd swear the line's not a direct quote from any of the books in the main series between America and Picaros (though stating that so definitely probably means I'll be proved wrong!)

It should be W, of course. I thought that the English translation was based on the French original versions?

Thanks for the W clarification, sthlm. (Changing a W to a V is a comon way of indicating a character's German accent in British dialogue writing, though not a device used in the Tintin books, hence my confusion.)

In that case, I'm sticking to my guess that it could be a Thom(p)son line.

sthlm01
I thought that the English translation was based on the French original versions?
The English translation is certainly based on the French originals, but often the translators (with Hergé's approval) would alter the wording of dialogue while keeping the general sense (rather than translating it word for word) in order for the dialogue to read more naturally to British readers, or to make a joke work better over here. So it's quite possible that while this line about 4.711 years features in the original French and Swedish editions, it has been changed beyond easy recognition in the UK books.

As I said before, the chances are that someone will now prove me a complete fool by finding the exact phrase in the UK editions after all! But it certainly doesn't sound familiar.

I am from Sweden too and I recognize the line. It sounds like something Captain Haddock would say, with his sarcasm, but I can't remember in which book.

Shouldn't be too hard though to find it... Probably said in a situation where he is very, very bored, or they are stuck somewhere.

Thanks to Etterbeek's clue, this quote is now solved! On page 54 in the first Swedish edition of the book Tintin in Tibet (1969), Captain Haddock say: "...We will need to stay here for about 4.711 years...".
In the new translation from 2005, Captain Haddock now say: "...We will need to stay here for about 700 years..." 700 years is the correct translation, and can be found in the French original version.

I've just looked it up in the English version. I might have forgotten the exact wording while walking from my bedroom bookshelf to my workroom computer, but in the English translation, Haddock says something like, "For all we know we might be waiting here for seven years..."

(In case anyone doesn't have the book to hand, it's the scene where they're waiting for the Yeti to emerge from his cave and Tintin has told Haddock they'll need to be patient.)

Seven years is a lot less than the 700 of Hergé's original French version, but having Haddock contemplating staying "seven years in Tibet" makes a neat allusion to the famous travel book of that name, which may have been behind the thinking of the English translators.
I wonder if Hergé read Seven Years in Tibet as part of his research for this adventure. Or maybe they just thought that 700 years sounded too far-fetched an exaggeration in English...?

I can't for the life of me see why the original Swedish translators had Haddock say "4.711 years" though. It sounds like a completely unnatural turn of phrase for Haddock (or anyone) to use in that context, when the point of the line is surely concern about having to wait for ages, not a sudden need to measure time with such mathematical precision.

Like I said earlier, you could just about imagine one of the Thom(p)sons being so pointlessly precise, but even then it wouldn't be as funny or subtle as any of their actual dialogue. Does someone saying "4.711 years" sound more normal (or funny) in Swedish, or did that line always sound a bit clunky in the old edition?

Anyway, thanks for clearing up the answer, sthlm. With three different translations of the books in Sweden, it sounds like your quiz has even more scope for fiendishly hard questions and disputed answers than this forum's quiz did!

I can't for the life of me see why the original Swedish translators had Haddock say "4.711 years" though. It sounds like a completely unnatural turn of phrase for Haddock (or anyone) to use in that context, when the point of the line is surely concern about having to wait for ages, not a sudden need to measure time with such mathematical precision.

I wonder if Sweden uses the continental system whereby large numbers are separated by points rather than commas? Whereas in English-speaking countries we may write '4,711 years', in continental Europe (I know of France, Germany and Italy at least...) they'd write '4.711 ans' or whatever. Conversely, the Europeans use commas where Anglophones use decimal points, hence pi in Europe would be 3,14159275 etc.

It's just a theory as I don't know if this is the case in Sweden; could someone confirm it?

Still seems a fairly arbitary number to choose though, and untypical of Haddock!

Ed