Long Vowels (Madd Letters ا و ي )

• Madd means to elongation.
• When a letter has no short vowel and is followed by a letter that has a short vowel, the vowel of the previous letter is elongated as long as the measure of one Alif (about one second).
• Please don’t miss that there are 3 sections below that contain exercises for all:  Alif (ا ) Yaa (ى) and Waaw (و).
• Especially in Yaa (ى) and Waaw (و) exercises, I intentionally pronounced them with a melody so that you may like to imitate me to beautify your recitation with maqam (melody).

Let’s start 😊:

1. Alif (ا )

• The short vowel on the letter before is always a fatha

2.Yaa (ى)

• If the long vowel (ى) comes after a letter, its sound is lengthened to twice the length of a short vowel and is recited with an ‘ee’ sound.
• The letter before ‘ya’ always has a kasra.

3.Waaw (و)

• If the long vowel (و) comes after a letter, its sound is lengthened to twice the length of a short vowel and is recited with an ‘oo’ sound.
• The letter before the long vowel (و) always has a damma.
• In some examples, the letter alif after the long vowel (و) signifies plurality and does not affect recitation in any way.