How did you begin to like LotR??

[Amanda]

I started liking LOTR when I saw Leonard Nimoy do his little 60's "Bilbo Baggins" dance. Just kidding.. that was just remarkably scary...

My sister got me into it when I was very young. I don't know what initially drew me to it. She was always into reading a lot so that's how that happened.

[EllethValatari]

Sorry, my story's kindof long.

I had to read the Lord of the Rings in 6th grade, in Literature class. My older brother had already read it and I kindof knew about LOTR. We read the first chapter in class, had a reading assignment, and went home. At home, while reading it, I really got into the story and stayed up all night to finish FOTR. The problem was, we weren't allowed to read ahead so I had to keep my reading a secret. (dumb, huh?) I got my brother's copy of TT and started to read it the next day, but I finished that in three days because I was busy. Then I started ROTK, and that took me about a week, I read it REALLY slowly so that I would REALLY understand it. I then reread the books and by then, I was really obsessed.

Christmas was soon, so I asked for the Simarillion for Christmas. I got it, started to read it, but couldn't keep up with the story line because of all the gods. So I bought "Tolkien's Guide to Middle Earth", looked up all the gods, made an outline, and kept it by my side while reading. Finished the book in about 3 weeks.

By then, I was obsessed with elves, and wanted to learn Elvish. I search online for something that would help me with grammar, vocab, etc and finally found a FREE DOWNLOADABLE BOOK that teaches Sindarin. I'm still working on my Elvish....but its okay...LOL

It's been about two years, I'm in 8th grade now, (probably the youngest one on Entmoot) and I have quite a collection of Tolkien "stuff" including 50th Anniversiary LOTR Trilogy UK Edition, oe of the ONLY copies of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil printed in 1952, The Histories of Middle Earth, The Simarillion, and the LOTR DVD's Extended with Director's Cuts.

[shesabrandybuck]

I started LOTR at a young age too (and, I still am young, but whatever). Anyway, welcome to Entmoot

[EllethValatari]

thanks!

[Valarauko5]

I too grew up having the Hobbit and LotR read to me as a child. I have read them many times now and I actually do enjoy the movies. I am also one of those nerdy guys who likes Dungeons and Dragons so the fantasy setting was always cool.
This next part is only slightly related so forgive me, but I saw someone who seemed in need of help with Elven and rushed to aid.

If I might be so bold. I having, as I have posted in another thread, grown up in a four language household, love languages. Granted I do not actually speak fluently all four languages. (except of course English). But I am currently taking an online Quenya course. It is very well laid out and I very much suggest it to all who enjoy Elven. Elleth Valatari especially, if you are having any trouble at all with Sindarin, Quenya is a whole lot easier to learn in comparison. Please someone correct me if I do this wrong, being a newbie, but this is the url
http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/qcourse.htm
This is not a site of my own making or of one of my friends. I simply found it while looking for an Elven language course after failing utterly my first attempts with a rather sadly done Sindarin course. Please feel free to ask for assistance in any sort of pronunciation because I seem to have a nack for Quenya. Not so much Sindarin....... Oh well. I'm moving onto that after Quenya. Hooray for Elves!

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by Valarauko5

Please someone correct me if I do this wrong, being a newbie, but this is the url
http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/qcourse.htm
This is not a site of my own making or of one of my friends. I simply found it while looking for an Elven language course after failing utterly my first attempts with a rather sadly done Sindarin course.

Ardalambion (run by Helge Fauskanger) is a well respected site.
Good find.
I believe they've got a Sindarin course as well. I haven't invested the time to really learn either - I did learn a little bit of Quenya some years ago, just enough so that I might distinguish a Quenya text from a Sindarin one, even without understanding either of them ...

[DARKastheRAIN]

Originally Posted by Varnafindë

I believe they've got a Sindarin course as well

nope unfortunately not. Just an explanation of the grammer structure and stuff, not an actual course


Valarauko5, where did you find your sadly done Sindarin course? I haven't been able to find one, sad or otherwise.

[Varnafindë]

Originally Posted by DARKastheRAIN

Valarauko5, where did you find your sadly done Sindarin course? I haven't been able to find one, sad or otherwise.

I just found a site with a Sindarin course - I haven't even followed the link, so it may of course be another sadly done one, but here's the page with the link:

http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/language.htm

Hope it may be of some use.

[DARKastheRAIN]

My first introduction to Middle-earth was the cartoon Hobbit movie. It was during all the excitement before New Line's Fellowship was about to be released, I think. I was only about 9 at the time. We lived in South Africa at the time, so they were making a super big deal of Tolkien being born there. My dad was the closest thing to a Tolkien fan in the house at the time and he wanted to take my older brother to see the movie with him, and he thought my brother should read the books before seeing it. I wasn't invited I guess he thought I was too young (he was probably right. I'm glad I didn't go see the movie without reading the books which would have likely been totally over my head at the time) But we borrowed a video of the Hobbit cartoon from a friend of my Grandparents and all the kids watched it. I think we watched it about fifty times over

It wasn't until after many years and a move over the Belegaer to the U.S. that, in the Summer after my freshman year of highschool, I got bored while staying at my Grandparents' house and picked up my brother's copy of the Fellowship. I had read up to just after the Hobbits see the Black Riders for the first time when we left my grandparents' and my brother and his books stayed with them. (Long story. In Arda Marred, families don't work the way they were meant to)

Then finally, when school started, I had to choose a book to read for Literature (yes, in my little private school, everyone got to choose!) But everything there was to choose from looked extremely boring. All except for the Lord of the Rings Trillogy! So I chose the Fellowship as my literature book, and did what I'd failed to do during my previous two exposures to Tolkien, I fell in love with Middle-earth. I had this little study guide thing with a bunch of (pretty stupid) questions over each chapter. But still, literature had become my new favorite subject.

We had to read two literature books a year in that school, so the first chance I got I chose the Two Towers as my second book, read through it in a few days, did the study guide (much more slowly) and then resigned myself to waiting all the way until next year to read RotK

My patience lasted till that Summer when after rereading the first two, I said to hell with waiting, I can just read it again when school starts. (Which didn't happen since I had to switch from my wonderful little private school to evil public school, where they don't let you read cool things like LotR and make you read stupid things like To Kill a Mocking Bird instead)

I'll stop now before I go into the whole story of How I first read the Silmarillion and How I first started learning Elvish, neither of which were the question.

[DARKastheRAIN]

I can't get it to work

[Valarauko5]

Here's the Sindarin site I found.
http://khallandra.tripod.com/sindarin/classes.htm
I don't know how good it is. Like I said before, I'm trying Quenya first because it's simpler. I'm actually getting quite good at it. Thanks you guys for replying. I was really worried people would get upset about my tangent.

P.S. I can't get that other Sindarin one to work either...

[Valarauko5]

That's kind of weird to. I actually gave that same link (just found out looking) to a friend of mine on Facebook and I KNOW it worked then. I'm not sure what I did to get it to work.

[Sicirus]

I started reading when my dad gave me the books stating "You will like these" and I did. I started with the trilogy and then The Hobbit. I read Silmarillion later when I got obsessed. Need to read the Unfinished tales, bought it quite a while ago and haven't had time to read it yet.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Sicirus

I started reading when my dad gave me the books stating "You will like these" and I did. I started with the trilogy and then The Hobbit. I read Silmarillion later when I got obsessed. Need to read the Unfinished tales, bought it quite a while ago and haven't had time to read it yet.

Fortunately, UT is one you can read in bits - and you don't have to start with the first story. You can skip around to points of interest, or shorter segments to get you going - because each is a separate story that stands on its own - filling in part of the larger Middle Earth story.

[Sicirus]

Excellent!! I do that with Silmarillion now whenever I want to return to a certain story. I shall work on the book in that way.

[Thorir Orcbane]

I've loved the Hobbit first, but that was a long time ago. I now find everything written by Tolkien fascinating. The Silmarillion is one of my new favourites also.

[Thorir Orcbane]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Fortunately, UT is one you can read in bits - and you don't have to start with the first story. You can skip around to points of interest, or shorter segments to get you going - because each is a separate story that stands on its own - filling in part of the larger Middle Earth story.

where could one buy the UT?

[Sicirus]

Originally Posted by Thorir Orcbane

where could one buy the UT?

Borders should have it. Or Barnes and Nobles.

[Morwen]

I finally read it after my parents kept telling me to when I was 14. Also, I wasn't allowed to watch the movies before I'd read the books, which annoyed me, everyone else was dressing up as Arwen and I had no idea who she was...
Now I'm so glad I read them before, as I think my images of all the characters would have been tainted otherwise. Immediately became a massive Tolkein nerd.

[katya]

Originally Posted by Morwen

I finally read it after my parents kept telling me to when I was 14. Also, I wasn't allowed to watch the movies before I'd read the books, which annoyed me, everyone else was dressing up as Arwen and I had no idea who she was...
Now I'm so glad I read them before, as I think my images of all the characters would have been tainted otherwise. Immediately became a massive Tolkein nerd.

I wish someone would've done that for me. Most parents obviously just don't care about their children nowadays, not in the places where it counts.