Question

assalamou alaikoum.

First of all, jazakoumoullahu khairan for this wonderful website, it's really helping me a lot in learning how to pronounce letters and to learn tajweed. 

I am having problems with a few letters, the sheen, the yaa and the laam...as for the sheen and yaa, it says on the website that the middle of the tongue has to touch the roof of the mouth, but no matter how much I try, I can't seem to make my tongue touch the roof of my mouth when I pronounce these letters, is there a technique I can use to make this happen? usually I feel that the middle of the tongue just rises up but never touches the roof of my mouth, and if I do get it to touch it, the sound isn't right.  As for the laam, my tongue has to be flat and touch only the roof of my mouth from the front, until the sides of the teeth, or does the tongue have to touch the teeth also?

jazakoumoullahu khairan for all your help. wassalamou alaikoum.

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

May Allah reward you for your nice comments and may He increase you in beneficial knowledge.

Both the letter  and the letter use the middle part of the tongue and the roof of the mouth, but because each of these two letters have the characteristic of running of the sound, they do not occlude the articulation point.  You should be able to feel the tongue rise up, but you will not feel a strong feeling of touch, even though the middle of the tongue meets the roof of the mouth.  The touching of letter  which shares the same articulation point can be felt much stronger since the letter doesn’t not have running of the sound and therefore the articulation point is occluded. 

Don’t try to force the feeling of touching for the  and , or you will end up with an incorrect sound by changing the characteristics. 

In the letter , the sides of the tongue until they end at the tip hit the gums of the eight upper front teeth.  The sides until the tip (sort of a “U” shape area of articulation) do not touch the roof of the mouth nor do they touch the teeth.  This letter takes practice for the non-Arab to perfect.  The motion of the sides until the tip of the tongue to the gums is an upward movement, with a solid unison hit of the  “U” shape line of the sides of the tongue until where they end at the tip to the gums.   

Insha’ Allah this helps you understand these different letters better.

Wa iyyaakum.

Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.