Ask a room of new students to read الْحَمْدُ and you will hear at least three versions of the ح. Some say it like an English "h", some push it too far back so it sounds like a cough, and one or two get it right. Nobody is being careless. They simply have never been shown where that letter lives. That is what makharij are for.

The word makhraj (plural makharij) means "exit point". In tajweed it is the place a sound leaves from. Once you know the place, you can find the sound again on your own, instead of copying it and hoping.

The five areas

Following Imam Ibn al-Jazari, whose poem al-Muqaddimah is still the standard text, the letters come out of five broad areas:

The throat, from deep to shallow

The throat holds six letters in three pairs. The deepest part, near the chest, gives ء and ه. The middle gives ع and ح. The top, closest to the mouth, gives غ and خ.

This is where most English speakers struggle, because English only really uses the deepest point (the "h" in "hat"). A quick test: say أَحْ slowly. You should feel a tight, breathy squeeze in the middle of your throat, with no scrape. If it scrapes, you have drifted up to خ. If it sounds like a soft English "h", you are too deep and have landed on ه.

The tongue, back to front

The tongue does most of the work. Rather than memorising all ten points at once, it helps to walk along the tongue:

• Very back of the tongue against the soft palate: ق. A little further forward: ك. The ق is deeper and heavier. Say قَلْب and كَلْب back to back and the difference is clear, as is the change in meaning (heart vs dog).
• Middle of the tongue against the roof of the mouth: ج ش ي (the ي here is a consonant, not the madd one).
• The side of the tongue against the upper molars: ض, the letter Arabic is named after (lughat ad-dad). It is one of the hardest letters to get right, and it is not a heavy د.
• The edges and tip: ل along the front edge, ن at the tip, and ر just behind it with a bit more of the top of the tongue.
• Tip against the roots of the upper front teeth: ط د ت.
• Tip against the edges of the upper front teeth, with the tongue showing slightly: ظ ذ ث.
• Tip just above the lower front teeth, with a whistling sound: ص ز س.

The lips and the nose

ف comes from the inside of the lower lip touching the tips of the upper teeth. ب and م come from both lips closing, ب with a firm closure and م more gently. و (the consonant) is made by rounding the lips without closing them.

The nasal passage is not a letter in itself. It is where the ghunnah, the humming sound, comes from when ن or م carry a shaddah or when noon sakinah meets certain letters. A simple check: pinch your nose while saying إِنَّ. If the sound cuts out, the ghunnah is there.

The pairs that cause the most trouble

In our classes, these are the mix-ups we correct most often, mainly with students who grew up speaking English or Urdu:

• ح and ه: both sound like "h" to an untrained ear. Compare حَبَّ (he loved) and هَبَّ (it blew).
• ع and ء: the ع is squeezed from the middle of the throat, the hamza is a short stop deep down.
• ث and س, ذ and ز: many Urdu speakers say ث as "s" and ذ as "z". In Arabic the tongue must touch the teeth for ث and ذ.
• ص and س, ط and ت: same point of articulation, but ص and ط are heavy. The back of the tongue rises and the sound fills the mouth.
• ض and د: the ض comes from the side of the tongue, not the tip.

How to practise without a teacher next to you

The classical method is still the best one. Put a hamza with fatha in front of the letter and give the letter a sukoon: أَبْ، أَتْ، أَثْ، أَجْ. When the letter is still, you can feel exactly where it stops. Do a handful of letters a day rather than all 28 at once.

A mirror helps for the lip and tooth letters. The throat letters are harder because you cannot see them, and this is where a live teacher saves months. In a one-on-one lesson, the teacher can stop you on the exact letter, model it, and have you repeat it until it sticks. If you are just starting, our Noorani Qaida course builds makharij from the very first lesson, and adults who already read can work on them in the Tajweed course.

How long it takes

Most of the 28 letters settle within a few weeks of regular practice. Two or three letters, usually ض, the throat pair ع/ح and the heavy letters, take longer. That is normal. Keep correcting them while you read, and they improve as you go.