urgent: Passing PHP variables in SMARTY

Hi everybody! I have a big problem here... I have a web site in PHP and want to convert it into SMARTY style. I have calls like this in my main file (old one, with no SMARTY): main.php?lang=en&cn=1 How can I catch this variables in my template? I tried this and it didn't work: index.php (SMARTY based) $smarty->assign("portal",$lang); index.tpl {php} if(isset($lang)) { {/php} <h1>set lang!</h1> {php} } {/php} Any help appreciated!. Thanks from now! Regards, M.Mamedov