The Fellowship of the Ring - part two. That was a tragedy for Gandalf because he couldn’t believe that the Ring was near to him all these years but he hadn't noticed it. He said to Bilbo that Ring must be staying in Shire (where hobbits live) and Bilbo came out. Frodo found Gandalf at home after party smoking a pipe and thinking about the Ring. Gandalf asked him to catch the Ring and try to recognize some words on it. Frodo did but saw nothing. Then Gandalf put the ring into the flame of a fireplace and gave back to Frodo. The Ring wasn’t hot. Frodo said that he can see some writings but he can’t read them because they were written in unknown language. Gandalf said that it was the language of Mordor and would be better if the Ring had not be found at all. He covered Ring into a envelope and said that Frodo must go to Bree (a little village) where Gandalf will be waiting him. This moment Gandalf noticed that somebody was listening his conversation in under a window . He dragged out him into the house and it was Sam, Frodos fellow. Firstly Gandalf got angry about this but then he appointed him as Frodos assistance. So friends went out form Shire and hold on for Bree. Gandalf vaulted into the saddle and rode to his Master – Saruman the White. It was famous and powerful sorcerer in Middle earth and Gandalf gaged on his advice. While he was riding, Frodo and Sam met two foolish guys and were called upon bring them to their trip. Gandalf got Saruman and it turned out that Saruman had already joined to Sauron and offered Gandalf to join too. Of course Gandalf refused and there was an epic battle of old sorcerers where Saruman won. Gandalf was cloistered on the roof of Sarumans tower. Meanwhile seven riders of Sauron leaved Mordor and hold the way to Shire to catch the Ring and bring it to their Master. They found Frodo and company in a forest and pursued them to some River which they couldn’t cross. Friend got Bree and went to a Bar… forgot it’s name… Something linked to horse. There they met a stranger who was from tall people and were by the way the last king of Isengard. His name was Aragorn the son of Arathorn. He for some reason decided that he had to help them and really helped and withdrew them from Bree. Anyway riders took them over and one of them, when Aragorn was fighting, hurted Frodos shoulder with poisoned sword. After that they disappeared and Aragorn went to find some medicine grass to heal Frodo. Unexpectedly he met a girld who was elf and named…. I forgot again.

The Lord of the Ring movie – The Fellowship of the Ring. Hi guys. In this little note I want to tell you about a movie which probably each of you have seen. The story was written by some guy from UK I forgot his name…Nahh. J.R.R. Tolkien. Yep. I tried to read the book and I can say now – it’s almost impossible for non-English man. There are so many specific and old words that I have never seen before. Anyway… The story begins with an introduction where we can see how the power rings were made and whom belong afterwards. Mmm. I don’t remember again but three of those were given to dwarves and seven to tall people and few to elves . But one ring was most powerful it was made in the flame of the mountain of Orodruin and came to Sauron, who was a pretty evil man. He did something with elves and they become orcs (don’t ask what). Well, Someday elves and tall people went against Sauron and there started a huge battle for Middle Earth. Middle Earth is an area where those guys lived and of course Sauron wished to get it all. In this battle Sauron almost won BUT Isildur the son of the King of the tall people got the ring from Saurons hand cutting of his finger out. When the Ring was taken off Sauron become destroyed. Mm.. What next.. There was an old Elf Elrond who was a ruler of Rivendall and said strictly to Isildur that the RING MUST BE DESTROYED because all power of Sauron was inside this Ring. Of course Isildur didn’t take his advice. He’d decided that he was able to have a deal with this ring. And he was wrong. Heart attack…. No, somewho's arrow poked his heart and he died. Sad story, isn’t it? Then the Ring came to a strange weird snipe who was called Gollum. For about 300 years the ring poisoned Gollums soul. And finally run away to another snipe called hobbit and named Bilbo Baggins. Hobbites were scrubby people who liked eat good meal, smoke good tobacco and drink good ale. They’d never liked adventures. When Bilbo found the Ring he stopped to become older and on his... 100th apparently birthday he looked as young as he was in a day when he found the Ring. He had a great friend named Gandalf who was a magician and a nephew Frodo Baggins. So Gandalf came to his birthday and there was a great party. Bilbo wanted to make joke on his friend and put the ring on. I forget to explain that when the ring is on a finger the owner becomes totally invisible. Gandalf put two and two together that it was funny business and found out about the Ring. Also he understood that Bilbo were going to go to Rivendall.

A little essay about digital sound. Okay let's getting started. If someone is interested of how is sound spreading from speakers welcome to my little note. First of all we need to remember what the sound generally is? Sound is a wave which spreads in around area (it might be air or water even hard body). On amplitude of the wave depends volume and on frequency depends tone (bass or treble). Okay, what happened when we're recording sound on our computer even if we're chatting skype :)? Firstly we need to catch sound from an emitter and convert it into electrical signal. To do that we need to use microphone which is a device which reacts on sound. When the wave have reached microphone it produces a voltage changeable by amplitude. Now we need to digitalize this signal into digital statement. In our soundcards we have Analog-to-digital converter ADC. It "read" our signal on microphone input every certain peice of time and assign some value to each point. This value correlates with voltage and means certain amplitude at the certain moment. You all have probably seen 44.1Khz/16Bit record? What do these hieroglyphs mean for us? It means that the frequency of catched signal is 44100 times per second which can give us 22050Hz of maximum frequency. Why 22050? Because each time we catch one semi-period of sinusoid and we need two times to catch period at least. In most cases its enought for comfortable listening because highest border of human perceived sound is about 20000Hz. What about 16 bit? 16 bit is accuracy of how many levels of amplitude we can write and it give us 65535 levels of amplitude. Not much thought but enough for listening. If you want to mix your sound and make song for exaple 16 bit would drastically deficient for quality mix. That's why sound engineers record sound on 24 bit ADCs and usually as 96Khz. Of course when listening we need to convert our digital file back to voltage which will be amplified and aplied to our speakers. For this task we have Digital-to-Analog converter or DAC and, as we can see from the name, it makes reversed to ADC process. Now you have a notion how your voice reaches to your friends on other side of the earth. Thank you for your attention. I'll be thankful for your corrections.

A good way to increase listening skills Just watch movies in that language which you want to know WITH your native language subtitles. Probably nobody can speak and pronounce words better than professional actors. And if you interested in live spoken language with some... mmm... colloquial expresions it's a good way to learn them. It might seem difficult especially for beginners (actually it is difficult) but the prize will be appropriate. Your listening skills will grow up, you will understand 10%-15% at the beginning and you won't have noticed for himself when you will able to understand almost all. Ability to understand different accents is an additional opportunity of such kind sessions. You may chose which movie you want to watch - should it be american western, comedy or some dirty movie of Guy Ritchie. Time is the price of our knowledge. It's impossible to watch TV right along few hours every day. But is there other more efficient way to improve listening skills? I guess not. I tried listening songs but understanding them much harder, sometimes impossible.

Does anybody knows efficient way to increase foreign language vocabulary? I'm sure vocabulary is a key to a good language level even if you don't know some grammar rules. If you know some features or piece of advice please share your knowledge with the people of italki :) I know easy one - word-stickers. But it's not very efficient alas.

Hello world! So guys, hi all. Let's try this tweety-style interface. I have to remember my English which I almost forgot for last two years. Practice makes perfect, isn't it? So if there are people who want to learn Russian seriously please welcome. We can have spoken conversations and written as well. Damn, I've always not been knowing what to say in such microblogs like this one and always was wondered how people do that. However, let me introduce myself. My name is Radmir and I live in Kazakhstan, city of Almaty. My native language is Russian and I personally think that Russian is quiet rich language for describing reality and exchange of ideas between people. But I understand also that English always has been a language of international communication. )) Therefore as well as I love chat and meet interesting people around the world I've decided that I must know English. Of course the general difficulty is a spoken language - speaking and listening. And if you want to learn fast and efficient you have to SPEAK and LISTEN, SPEAK and LISTEN whatever was said to you. Written language is important too but it's not really live language and usually is bound in borders of formality. And of course new words. You may not know grammar at all but if you know some words you will be able to impress your thinks at least. you you know grammar but don't know new words - you lose. You won't be able to say almost nothing except "Hello world". Might I say: Hello world!

First notebook entry: Introducing myself Hi alL! I'm looking for just interesting people who want to speak Russian or English.