Learn English with Resident Evil 9 Requiem’s Tutorials Menu (Part 2): Stagger, Wield, Parry and Wriggle Free

Basics: quick turn and the touchpad

• Alex: Today we are learning English with Resident Evil 9 and with <mark>Leon’s campaign</mark>.
• Alex: Left stick plus the circle button. This performs a <mark>quick turn</mark>.
• Alex: This is quite useful, especially when you’ve got to <mark>leg it</mark>, when you’ve got to escape from zombies.
• Alex: You can change the intensity of the <mark>camera wobble</mark>.
• Alex: That large rectangular button in the centre is called the <mark>touchpad</mark>.

Items, herbs and crafting

• Alex: Items with check marks have <mark>served their purpose</mark>. You can <mark>discard</mark> them to <mark>free up</mark> space in your inventory.
• Alex: <mark>Restoring health</mark>. This is very important in the Resident Evil saga. Use green herbs or med injectors.
• Alex: Green herbs aren’t as <mark>potent</mark>, which means powerful, on their own, so try using them in crafting to increase their <mark>healing properties</mark>.
• Alex: You can <mark>craft</mark> items by combining materials together via the crafting menu.

Combat: UK vs US

• Alex: We’ve got <mark>combat</mark>. Pay attention to that word in British English.
• Alex: The first syllable rhymes with words like <mark>stop</mark>. The last syllable rhymes with words like <mark>trap</mark> and <mark>cat</mark>: COM-bat.
• Alex: But in American English, the first syllable is pronounced with a relaxed A sound: cahm-BAT.

Improving your aim: the reticle and stagger

• Alex: <mark>Improving your aim</mark>. If you aim without moving your weapon, the <mark>reticle</mark> will narrow.
• Alex: The reticle is that thing you see on screen. It shows a kind of <mark>target</mark>.
• Alex: This will increase the power of shots and make them more likely to <mark>stagger</mark> enemies.
• Alex: <mark>Stagger</mark>, without pronouncing the R at the end. That’s British English. In American English: stagger, with an R.
• Alex: To stagger means to walk or move with difficulty, as if you’re going to <mark>fall</mark>. That’s what we want zombies to do!
• Alex: Just <mark>bear with me</mark>. We’ll explain what a melee attack is all about.

The Requiem revolver

• Alex: Whoa. I’d forgotten I equipped the <mark>Requiem</mark>. That’s the Requiem revolver. And actually, it’s the name of the game, too.
• Alex: Let’s go back to the other gun, which is called an Alligator Snapper, a <mark>reliable</mark> semi-automatic handgun.

Close combat: wield the hatchet

• Alex: Let’s pay attention to <mark>close combat attacks</mark>.
• Alex: While <mark>wielding</mark> the hatchet… Two key words in this part of the sentence.
• Alex: <mark>Wield</mark>, with a long E sound. If you wield something, you hold a weapon or a tool and it seems that you’re about to use it.
• Alex: The difference between the two is that a <mark>hatchet</mark> is a small <mark>axe</mark>.
• Alex: <mark>Hatchet</mark>: the first syllable rhymes with trap or cat.
• Alex: You can perform a more powerful attack with L1 <mark>plus</mark> R2.

Ammo and spelling: favored or favoured?

• Alex: That’s handgun ammo. <mark>Ammo</mark> is short for <mark>ammunition</mark>.
• Alex: Handgun <mark>cartridges</mark> are suitable for self-loading, favoured for their flat <mark>trajectory</mark> and moderate <mark>recoil</mark>.
• Alex: Can you see the spelling of <mark>favor</mark>? That’s American English. In British English, after the O you’ve got a U: favour.

Parrying and a blunt hatchet

• Alex: You can <mark>parry</mark>. Mind the pronunciation: parry, with the A sound in trap or cat. That’s British English.
• Alex: In American English it’s pronounced with an E sound, just like in dress: <mark>“perry”</mark>.
• Alex: You can parry certain enemy attacks with L1, but be careful. You can’t parry with a <mark>blunt</mark> hatchet.
• Alex: A blunt pencil, knife, etc. is <mark>not sharp</mark>.
• Alex: So you need to <mark>sharpen</mark> the hatchet after using it.
• Alex: Just bear with me. To <mark>bear with</mark> somebody means to be patient with them and wait for them to finish doing something.

Melee attacks and knocking back

• Alex: <mark>Melee</mark> attacks. You’ve got two pronunciations for that one.
• Alex: Attacking an enemy’s head or legs will stagger them. Remember that word: it will make them move unsteadily from side to side.
• Alex: While staggered, you can <mark>knock them back</mark> with a melee attack using the cross button.
• Alex: You can use this tactic to your advantage to knock back multiple <mark>nearby</mark> enemies.
• Alex: <mark>Isosceles</mark>: in this case it refers to a kind of shooting <mark>stance</mark>. You stretch your arms when aiming.

Climb up onto a car’s roof

• Alex: You can <mark>climb up onto</mark> cars. Look at that.
• Alex: Onto a roof’s car… actually, <mark>a car’s roof</mark>. Sorry, I mixed up words.
• Alex: This allows you to <mark>have the high ground</mark>, to be in a position of advantage against enemies.

Finishing attacks: point-blank range

• Alex: Now, <mark>finishing attacks</mark>. Firearms.
• Alex: A firearm finishing attack is a shot at <mark>point-blank range</mark> that lets you instantly <mark>take down</mark> an enemy with low health.
• Alex: I’m not sure if the enemy is the one with low health, or Leon. If it’s well written, it should be the enemy, because <i>with low health</i> comes right after the word <i>enemy</i>.
• Alex: Point-blank shooting is done from a gun that is fired from <mark>extremely close</mark> to the target, or when almost touching it.

Stealth kills and pulling it off

• Alex: <mark>Stealth kills</mark>. You use the hatchet to execute unsuspecting enemies from behind.
• Alex: We don’t have <mark>unsuspecting</mark> enemies. That means enemies that don’t suspect that you’re nearby.
• Alex: Enemy weapons can be picked up and thrown at other enemies to stagger them, but only once a target is <mark>in range</mark>.
• Alex: Let’s put this to the test and see if we can <mark>pull it off</mark>.
• Alex: <mark>Pull off</mark> has got more than one meaning, but in this case it means to succeed in doing something difficult.

Leon and wriggle free

• Alex: How do you pronounce that name in English? You’ve got three pronunciations of <mark>Leon</mark>.
• Alex: The three pronunciations have in common that the first syllable is <mark>LEE</mark>, with a long E.
• Alex: When you’re running away from zombies and they try and grab you, you can <mark>wriggle free</mark> from them.
• Alex: Wriggle is pronounced the same in British and American English. The <mark>W</mark> at the beginning is <mark>not pronounced</mark>.
• Alex: It means to <mark>twist</mark> your body, or move part of your body, with small, quick movements.
• Alex: Just like the Queen song: “I want to <mark>break free</mark>”, which means to escape. Wriggle free means to escape with twisting movements.

Requiem: how to say it

• Alex: Resident Evil Requiem is pronounced REK-wee-um, with a <mark>schwa</mark> at the end. That’s one pronunciation. Or REK-wee-em, with an E at the end.
• Alex: In both pronunciations, the stressed syllable is the <mark>first one</mark>: REK-wee-um.

Piercing capabilities

• Alex: Offering high-powered <mark>piercing</mark> capabilities. It’s a weapon you can <mark>rely on</mark>.
• Alex: To <mark>pierce</mark> means to go into or through something, making a hole in it using a sharp point.
• Alex: For example: the gun fires a shell capable of piercing the armour of an enemy tank.
• Alex: If you can <mark>rely on</mark> this gun, it means that you can trust it.

Spot on, Leon! And the C.A.R. system

• Alex: Using enemy weapons. Let’s pick this weapon up and throw it at the zombie in range.
• Alex: <mark>Spot on</mark>, Leon! Well done.
• Alex: We’ve <mark>exhausted</mark> the tutorials, haven’t we? We’ve covered them all.
• Alex: Oh, we’ve <mark>run out of</mark> bullets. That is the problem.
• Alex: The name of that shooting stance is the C.A.R. system: <mark>Center Axis Relock</mark> system.

Climb up onto, not up on

• Alex: Remember this: if you climb up onto a car, you <mark>have the high ground</mark>.
• Alex: We can be <mark>pulled off</mark> a car. We get dragged by one leg if we’re standing on a car’s roof.
• Alex: Why <mark>climb up onto</mark> cars, and not “climb up on cars”?
• Alex: O-N-T-O, because you’re in <mark>movement</mark>. You’re moving from one position to the other, and <mark>onto</mark> is used for that.
• Alex: But now I’m <mark>on</mark> the car. I’m on the car’s roof. So <mark>onto implies movement</mark>.