Our world is getting more connected and globalized, knowing your native language just doesn’t it cut it anymore. Speaking 2 languages is becoming a minimum in this globalized world of ours. When you’re learning a new language you might make some mistakes at first. But you aren’t the first one to learn a new language and there have been many other people who have done it before. The best thing to do is learn from other people’s common mistakes as well as yours. The following are some common mistakes many people make when learning a new language

Approaching it as homework or an unpleasant task

Most people see learning a language as some type of hard homework. And those same people find that learning how to surf or learning how to play an instrument a fun and pleasant thing to do. But they’re oblivious to one thing, they’re oblivious to the fact that learning a language can be just as fun if not more fun than learning how to surf or other activities.

Stop approaching learning languages as homework and start learning languages in a fun and effective way. It’s not homework, so textbooks and classes aren’t the only way to learn. Find someone you can have conversations with, try learning more about the culture behind the languages. Languages are much more than a way of communications, they’re the symbols and icons of their people.

Not speaking and Not listening

Another common mistake is depending textbooks to gain the skill of speaking in a new language. No matter how much time you spend studying from a textbook you won’t magically become able to speak in a new language. In order to speak, you have to start having conversations. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes as you’ll learn from them as you go on.

Now that you have started talking or trying to talk, you should close your month for a moment and listen. When you’re trying learn a sport you try imitating those who play it well, you try copying what they do. That’s how we all learn, by copying others. And listening to others speak is how you’ll copy a language.

Try listening to whatever you find in the language you’re learning whether it’s music, news or movies. Don’t worry even if you can’t understand what you hear, it will make you get used to the language as well as improve your pronunciation greatly.

Translating every concept directly

This is one of the most common mistakes that many learners fall prey to. Every language is different from others, trying to translate concepts and phrases directly will result in an unnatural sounding speech. You could even confuse yourself by doing bad translations. When you start learning a new language you should forget about your native language and start from a blank state. Get used to absorbing new patterns and expressions.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Learning a new language is a challenging task but it also has a lot of benefits that most people don’t know. And there are a lot of interesting facts about languages which most people don’t know. Here are some facts about languages:

• Learning a foreign language has been shown to have benefits from an academic as well as information retention point of view. Improvements include those of critical thinking skills, creativity and flexibility of the mind. Students who study a second language tend to perform better in other subjects. Career-wise, bilingualism is a strong asset and it is said that in certain fields, bilingual candidates can earn up to 20% more than monolinguals.

• Language acquisition is one of the quintessential human traits, because nonhumans do not communicate by using language. Language acquisition usually refers to first-language acquisition, which studies infants’ acquisition of their native language. This is distinguished from second language acquisition which deals with the acquisition (in both children and adults) of additional languages.

• 1,619 (or 23%) of all world languages are spoken by fewer than half-a-million people, 548 (about 8%) are spoken by fewer than 100 people, and 204 (or 3%) of all world languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people. This is because at least 50% of endangered languages are spoken within small communities.

• Currently, between 6000 to 7000 languages are spoken in the world today. This figure decreases every day. It is estimated that 50-90% of these languages will become extinct by 2100.

• The small country Papua New Guinea has 12% of all spoken languages on Earth. They boast 840 living languages.

Learning a new language such as Arabic can be a bit hard. Most people take a lot of classes and read fat textbooks in order to learn but in the end they find they haven’t made a lot of progress. But many of these people never touch the language they are learning outside of class and textbooks. This makes learning more hard. Here are some tips and tricks which will help you in learning Arabic or any other foreign language.

Setting a goal, working towards it and making mistakes along the way:

Setting a goal will make it easier to track your progress. If you don’t have a clear goal for learning, you might easily get lost and lose track of the progress you are making. If your goal is being able to have conversation, then try having conversations from day one. If your goal is to read literature, try reading from day one. Start working towards your goal from day one and don’t wait until you have reached a certain level, start from day one. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, when you learnt your first language as a child you started by saying words and then sentences, and of course you made a lot of mistakes; you probably didn’t even pronounce the words correctly at first. So it’s completely normal to make mistakes while learning a new language.

Surrounding yourself with the language:

As mentioned before, just taking classes and reading textbooks will not give you a lot of progress. You don’t use your mother language in a set and limited period of time, you use it all the time whether you are reading something, talking to somebody or just thinking. That’s why, if you’re learning a new language surrounding yourself with it will accelerate your learning progress. The easiest way to surround yourself with a language is to travel to a place where it’s spoken. Unfortunately, many people can’t do that. But don’t worry if you can’t there are other way in which you can surround yourself with your new language. What you can do is bring the language to your everyday life. You can do this by changing your phone’s language to the language you’re learning. Don’t limit this to your phone only, change the language of any device you own to your target language. This will make your brain adapt and get used to the language.

Thinking in your new language

Try thinking in the language you’re learning. It might sound like something stupid and discomforting but in fact, it will actually help you review the vocabulary and grammatical patterns that you’re learning. This, in turn, will speed-up the passive-to-active vocabulary transition.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Horses are of the most elegant of animals and were once one of the most useful animals for humans. Horse riding used to be an important skill, whether it was for transportation or for war. Nowadays horse riding isn’t as important as it was in the past. But it still exists as a great and fun sport. Arabian horses are arguably the best breed of horses. Here are some interesting facts about them:

• The Arabian breed is over 5,000 years old and is known as the oldest breed and the first domesticated breed of horse.

• Arabian horses were originally bred in the Middle East. The Arabian horse is the oldest purebred horse in the world. The Arabian was the horse the Bedouin people (nomadic people) of Arabia as early as 3000 to 2500 BC. They were later introduced into Europe and throughout the world.

• Arabian horses were bred by the Bedouins, a desert tribe in the Arabian Peninsula. This tribe used them as war horses due to their large lung capacity and incredible endurance and their ability to travel long distances in harsh desert conditions.

• All Arabian horses have black skin underneath their coats, except underneath any white hair. When these horses lived in the desert, the black skin would help to protect them from the hot sun.

• The most common coat color of Arabian horeses is bay. You will also see many chestnuts, grey, blacks and roans.

• The skeleton of a pure Arabian horse is different from that of other horse breeds. An Arabian horse has 17 pairs of ribs, instead of 18 and 5 vertebrae instead of 6.

Right now the world is advancing faster than ever, and the need to keep up with that advance is important more than ever. Now, there are important and popular jobs which didn’t existed 20 years ago and there are some important jobs which existed 20 years ago and are now redundant. And within the next 20 years a lot of new jobs which don’t exist today will surface and a lot of jobs that exist today will become redundant. This makes learning more important than ever, it’s also one of the main reasons why technology should be integrated into education. Along with the above those are 3 other reasons why it’s important.

1. Using technology as a learning tool: In the digital age, learning never stops. Educational technology can improve not only student learning, but also teacher productivity. For instance, education related websites provide a variety of resources for educators, like lesson plans and learning techniques. Being able to collaborate with other teachers and connect with parents is a great advantage. The use of technology helps students benefit from extra support and help resources, reshaping the learning experience.

2. Interactive learning: Integrating technology in education can help improve the interaction between teachers and students. The teacher can engage a group of students through use of technology, has more time to focus on individual student needs and is able to give feedback faster. Interactive learning teaches students how to work successfully in groups and participate in the conversation. Technology made real time communication become possible.

3. Meaningful learning: As the world is constantly evolving, staying up-to-date with new technologies is imperative. Nowadays, students have access to an abundant amount of information. That makes it very important to know how to organize it, how to select valuable information, evaluate and structure it. They learn from thinking and reasoning. By learning to use technology, students are developing the skills, knowledge and experience that will prepare them for their future in society.

Some say that in the future computers and technology will completely replace teachers. My response is that great teachers could never be replaced. Computer will never be able to teach with the same enthusiasm and emotions that a great teacher can deliver. At most computers would be at the same level as the worst teachers.

“Any teacher that can be replaced with a computer, deserves to be.” – David Thornburg

Written by: Osama Waheib

If you are learning Arabic or considering learning it, you might be wondering why it would be beneficial. Here are some reason on why you should learn Arabic.

1. Arabic is the 5th most commonly spoken native language in the world: Arabic is the official language of over 20 countries and there are well over 350 million native speakers of the language. These speakers are largely concentrated in the Middle East, but there are minority groups of native speakers throughout the world. It is also an official language of the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference, and the African Union.

2. Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam: In addition to the millions of native speakers, many more millions know Arabic as a foreign language, since as the language of the Qu’ran, it is understood by Muslims throughout the world.

3. Arabic-speaking nations are a fast growing market for trade: Initiatives to integrate the Arab world into the global economy are opening up numerous potential business opportunities. The Arab region with its rapidly growing population provides a huge export market for goods and services. With the collective GDP of the Arab League being over 5 trillion US dollars annually, the region has much to offer the world market. In order to do business effectively, one must understand the language and culture of the people with whom one hopes to negotiate and conduct trade.

4. Arabic-speaking peoples have made significant contributions to world civilization: While Europe was experiencing the relative intellectual stagnation of the Middle Ages, the Arab-Islamic civilization was at its zenith. Arabs contributed a great deal to the advancement of science, medicine, and philosophy. Much learning from the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine cultures was preserved for the world through the Arab libraries. Arabs have also made significant contributions in such areas as literature, mathematics, navigation, astrology, and architecture. A knowledge of Arabic enables the exploration of this vast body of knowledge in their original language.

Augmented Reality is an amazing technology that has gone mainstream thanks to PokemonGo. Now almost everyone knows what Augmented Reality is and if you still don’t know what augmented reality is, then the basic definition for it is: Using a device usually your phone’s camera to add computer generated imagery into the real world view.

Its progress in education has been nothing but excellent. Student who have used this technology showed higher focus rates and attention to the lesson. The applications and uses of AR in education are limitless and it can help in almost every field of education. Here are some of the uses:

• Interactivity:Interactive education is nothing new, but interacting and manipulating a 3D object in the air levels up the playing field of interactive education.
• History:A professor can teach about ancient civilizations and with the help of augmented reality he can show artifacts from said civilizations for students to examine from every angle. Which brings a hands-on approach to education.
• Dissection:Augmented reality can literally cut layers of body and show us what’s behind every layer. And this can also apply to architecture to demonstrate why some parts of the framework are important.
• Space:It could also bring planets, stars and the whole cosmos right in front of you with statistical information about them for you to examine.
• Landmarks:Teachers could teach about the pyramids and show photos of them but by using augmented reality they can bring them to the classroom.
• Living books: It could also bring the concepts and material that a textbook contains to life and shows interactive models that you could examine and manipulate.

Interactive Dynamic Video:

Though Augmented Reality has some limitations and one of the most obvious ones is: virtual objects can’t interact with the real world. I’m sorry but the previous statement should be in the past tense now, since researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have just recently developed a technology that lets virtual objects interact with real objects. The technology is called Interactive Dynamic Video (IDV). By using a traditional camera and some computer algorithms, IDV searches for subtle and invisible vibrations of an object, it then uses those vibrations to create images and videos that users could virtually interact with. This completely kills one of the biggest limitations of Augmented Reality and makes it possible for virtual objects to interact with real objects. This will have great applications in many fields including education, and especially those who study  and or work in the engineering field.

If you still don’t get it watch this video and you’ll understand it better.

Written by: Osama Waheib

The Arabic language is the unifying language of Arabian countries, in addition to being the official language of over 29 countries it’s also a pretty ancient one. The oldest written form of Arabic is over 1500 years old and the spoken language is much older, some claim spoken Arabic is over 5000 years old. Here are some interesting facts you might not know:

1. Arabic is the sacred language of Muslims. Before the dissension of the Quran, Arabic was chiefly an oral language. Arabic is considered a holy language as it is the language of the Quran. Hence it is the chief prayer language for Muslims.

2. Arabic is the written and spoken language of more than 350 million inhabitants of the Arab world. Arabic is spoken in a lot of the countries of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. According to the CIA’s The World Fact book, Arabic is spoken in around twenty-nine countries in this part of the world.

3. Arabic script is used by 1/7th of the world’s population. Hundreds of millions of people in Africa and Asia write their languages in the Arabic alphabet. In addition to that the Arabic script is the co-official script of many countries including China and India.

4. Arabic belongs to the Semitic language family which includes Aramaic and Hebrew. It is the most common spoken Semitic language in fact.

5. Arabic script reads from right to left and its alphabet contains 28 characters. Words are written horizontally from right to left. Numerals on the other hand are written from left to right. The number 4, 5, 6, 7 have various forms in the languages of Iran, Pakistan, and India. It has complex text language, because it has script which is bidirectional. It is written right to left, apart from numbers and Latin words are written left to right. Many letters depending on whether they appear alone, at the start, middle or end of the word, change their form.

6. The Arabic script unlike many other alphabetic scripts, denotes a high phonetic correctness, when diacritics are added.

Virtual Reality is the latest technology that is starting to find its way into education. The technology itself is still in a pretty early stage but it looks pretty promising. Some of you might be wondering, what is virtual reality? Well, it’s a good question in order to fully understand what virtual reality is, and the potential behind it, you have experience it yourself. But if you want a quick description then that’s easier; virtual reality is a computer generated 3-dimensional image or environment that you can interact with in a seemingly real or physical way. The device that enables such a thing is called a VR headset or a VR viewer. So as you can see virtual reality is a promising technology that could be used in many ways.

A virtual learning environment:

Virtual reality can create a virtual learning environment for the students to learn. Things that weren’t possible in reality will be possible virtual reality, for example: When we teach students about space and astronomy the most we can do to make them immersed is show them image and videos about space, but by using virtual reality we can put students in a virtual space ship and make them travel through space. The possibilities for virtual reality are endless we can re-create scenes from famous historical wars in virtual reality, and let student view them.

Creativity and interest:

Virtual reality will fuel student’s interest in learning. It will make them interested in the various field which they thought were boring, and in return the students will explore those field increasing their creativity. All of this will make students more willing to learn about new things and explore subjects and topics which they will not have had normally thought about.

Google’s Arts & Culture:

Google Arts & Culture is an app developed by Google. It’s an app that has a large collection of artworks, historical artifacts and other stuff along with information about said stuff. Just recently Google added a new feature, do you know what it is? Yup it is virtual reality, Google added virtual tours famous places, historical places, famous locations, historical locations, etc. Of course to view those virtual tours you will need a VR viewer such as the cheap Google Cardboard or the more expensive Samsung gearVR. You can click this word here to check it out. This is a small step in order to integrate virtual reality into education, it also shows you the potential for virtual reality.

Written by: Osama Waheib

Islamic and Arabian art is one of the most beautiful types of artwork. In ancient times the prosperity of the Arabian countries, with their harbor towns and caravan routes, depended entirely upon trade. Merchandise from Africa, India, and the Persian Gulf, together with frankincense and myrrh (for which Arabia was famous), were carried northward to Egypt and the Mediterranean, greatly enriching the cities and tribes through whose territory they passed. That’s why the style of Islamic art looks as if it’s a complex synthesis of various cultures.

Painting, writing, and calligraphy:

Arabic writing is done from right to left, and was generally written in dark inks, with certain things embellished with special colored inks (red, green, gold). In early Arabic and early Medieval, writing was typically done on parchment made of animal skin. The ink showed up very well on it, and occasionally the parchment was dyed a separate color and brighter ink was used (this was only for special projects). The name given to the form of writing in early times was called Kufic script.

The late medieval period was heavily influenced by China and introduced illuminated manuscripts, which were writings decorated with extremely detailed drawings and paintings – often with expensive ink. They are one of the most well-known types of Arabic art. Cursive writing became more popular during this time, and began showing up on different objects, like pottery and carved panels.

Illuminated manuscripts continued into the late Arabic period and also brought about the creation of albums, where drawings were combined with written work and bound into a book for a special person, like a king or sultan. Portrait painting also became popular at this time, and were created not only for the wealthier people, but peasants and merchants at well. Paper-making was also in full swing by now, due to the popularity of the illuminated manuscripts. And as you can see the art of Arabic Calligraphy continued evolving becoming an iconic art form for the Arabs.