# Amber, gold and grey: how Qiraa marks your recitation > A complete guide to the marks Qiraa leaves under your words: what each colour means, what happens while you recite, why “not sure” never counts against you, and how to turn a page of marks into ten minutes of practice. - URL: https://qiraa.io/posts/how-qiraa-marks-your-recitation - Language: en - Published: 2026-10-24 - Updated: 2026-10-24 - Section: AI & recitation - Reading time: 11 min --- When you recite to Qiraa, it does two jobs: it follows your place in the muṣḥaf word by word, and it checks what you said against what is printed. The second job leaves marks on the page. This guide is about reading them — what each one means, which ones count, and what to do next. In one breath: **amber** is a slip — a word that went wrong, was left out, or carried a wrong vowel. **Gold** is a note on how a word was said, never a mistake. **Grey** means Qiraa could not hear clearly, and it never counts. No mark is ever red: red belongs to the open microphone. And the ink, with its tajwīd colours, stays exactly as printed. Allah says: وَرَتِّلِ الْقُرْآنَ تَرْتِيلًا — “and recite the Qurʼān with measured recitation” (al-Muzzammil 73:4). The marks serve that. They show you, calmly, where your recitation and the page parted, so that next time they do not. They are practice between lessons, never a replacement for a teacher’s ear. ## One set of marks, wherever you recite Qiraa uses the same marks everywhere it hears you: the reading screen, the Hifz trainer’s cards, Test me, a Halaqah, and the Hifz trainer’s Canvas, where a recitation ends as a result card beside its āyāt. Three rules hold them together: - **A mark lives under its word.** A dotted line, a soft wash or an outline sits beneath the letters. The muṣḥaf’s ink is never recoloured, so your tajwīd colours stay true. - **Amber counts; gold and grey never do.** Gold and grey are there to inform you, not to score you. - **Red is the microphone’s.** While Qiraa listens, the mic is red. No mark on your page ever is. On the reading screen, marking slips needs the AI Tutor. With it off, hold the mic and the modes offer it at their foot: “Turn on AI Tutor”, with the line “Slips marked as you say them”. Recite there without it and you practise on the phone alone, with nothing marked. ## Each mark, and what it means The names in quotation marks are Qiraa’s own words. ### Amber dotted line on a soft wash: the word went wrong The mark you will see most. The word card says which of four slips it was: - **“Wrong word”** — another word in its place. - **“Letter”** — one letter came out as another. When Qiraa can tell, the card shows the printed letter and the one it “sounded like”. - **“Look-alike”** — a word from a look-alike āyah: your memory turned into its twin. - **“Vowel”** — the right word with a wrong short vowel or ending. Since October 2026 this is a slip like any other, drawn in amber and counted. ### Dashed amber outline: a word left out The card calls it “Missed”. Jump a whole āyah and Qiraa says so as you recite — “You skipped ayah 5 — recite it” — and its row reads “Skipped”. ### Small amber caret in the gap: a word added An extra word, often from a nearby or look-alike āyah. Qiraa marks it only when its check is sure, places the caret where the word was said, and names its source, as in “You added «مَا», from Al-Falaq 113:2.” The words either side keep their ink: you said them correctly. ### Gold dotted line: a note, never a mistake Gold is about how a word was said, not which word: a long madd held short. The card calls it “Stretch” and sets your length beside the qāriʾ’s. It never counts. ### Faint grey dotted line: not heard clearly Qiraa could not hear the word well enough to judge it. It never counts and is never called a mistake; the list names such words once, under “Not heard clearly · not counted”. ### No mark at all: a word said again Stopping to say a word again is how every reciter steadies themselves, and it leaves nothing on the page. Qiraa may say “You repeated «…» — carry on”, and moves on with you. ## What happens while you recite Tap the mic on the reading screen and you are in Recite: “Qiraa listens and marks slips.” The page lights each word as you say it, and some slips are named before you finish: - **A word left out:** “A word was left out — «…»”. - **Another word in its place:** “That’s not «…» — say it again”. - **A wrong vowel,** once the āyah’s check returns: “«…»: wrong vowel (tashkeel) — say it again.” With the verses hidden, the notices never name the word you are reaching for — “A word was left out — go back for it”, “That’s not the next word — say it again” — because that would give the answer away. A confirmed slip brings your alert sound and a short vibration. A word the follow merely doubts gets at most a light tick and no sound, so the full alert stays worth trusting. Choose it all in **Settings › Recitation checking**, under “What a slip feels like”: “Live mistake alerts”, “Alert sound” (Silent, Soft, Chime or Buzz) and “Vibrate on mistake”. ### A word you correct stays counted Go back and say a named word properly and Qiraa hears it — but the mark stays, and the row reads “Wrong word · then fixed” (or, for an āyah, “Skipped · then recited”). The first pass is the honest picture of what your memory gave you, and tomorrow’s review needs that picture. A teacher would have heard the slip too. Counting it keeps your record true; “then fixed” keeps it fair. ### Stopping is not a mistake Stop halfway through an āyah and Qiraa will not judge the half you did not say. An āyah you finished is checked; while its answer is on the way, the list shows “Checking…”. On a long āyah that can take a few seconds. ## Never a word before you say it When you recite from memory, the worst thing a screen can do is help. If the next word appears a moment early, you read it instead of recalling it, and you finish believing you knew a passage you were really reading. So Qiraa follows faithfully. Tap **Hide** on the reading screen’s dock and the words are covered; each comes back only once you have said it. Nothing ahead of your voice is ever uncovered. Even the look-alike warning keeps the rule: with the text hidden it says only “Look-alike of … ahead — mind the turn”. When we first measured, 45.5% of words appeared before they had been said; across every pace we test, that is now 0.0%. And when an āyah ends, the check still hears all of it — which is how it can name a word you left out. ## Correct, not sure, incorrect: why “not sure” exists Every āyah Qiraa checks gets one of three answers: **correct**, **not sure** or **incorrect**. The middle one matters most. A noisy room, a soft voice or a child’s voice can make a word hard to hear. An app with only two answers must then guess, and a wrong guess marks a learner wrong for something they said correctly. So when Qiraa cannot be sure, it says so: - The word gets the grey line, never amber. - It never counts, never sounds the alert and never fails an āyah. - Nothing is announced mid-recitation; the word is named once, in the list. - In Test me, an āyah the check heard but could not be sure of is “Nearly”: kept warm for review, never failed. One rule sits behind all of this: the safety checks around a verdict can only soften it toward “not sure”. They can never turn doubt into an accusation. In **Settings**, under the AI tutor, “How closely it listens” offers **Easy** (“Keeps you moving. Lighter checking, and it never stops you mid-āyah.”), **Normal** (“A steady ear. The real slips, judged once the āyah ends.”) and **Strict** (“Checks closely. It takes longer, and it can pause you on a word.”). The vowel check rides on the switch beside it, “Check tajwīd and vowels”. ## When you drift into a look-alike āyah The Qurʼān repeats phrases with small, meaningful differences. Of its 6,236 āyāt, 988 — about 16% — share their first four words with another āyah, and Qiraa holds 2,451 pairs of āyāt that differ by a single edit. Slide into a twin and you keep going fluently; every word is real Qurʼān, so nothing sounds wrong. The mistake is in the place, not the pronunciation. So a drift is marked as a look-alike, and Qiraa tells you where you went: - **While you recite:** “That was Al-Aʿrāf · Ayah 161 — here it goes on: …”. With the text showing, it can also warn you before the fork: “Look-alike of … — here it goes on «…»”. - **On the word card:** “Sounds like”, then the sūrah and āyah. Tap it for the Look-alikes panel: the twins side by side — “Yours”, the one marked “You said this”, then the rest — with the parting words lit, under a line such as “12 āyāt open the same way. Only the last word parts.” - **On the Canvas:** the result card writes it short — “Sounds like 7:161”. - **On the Mistakes page:** a word that keeps drifting reads like “Goes to Al-Qāriʿah”, so you see a habit, not a one-off. Found a pair? Practise the two āyāt together, on purpose, until the fork is the thing you remember. ## After you stop: the list, the word card and You › Mistakes ### The list End a recitation and Qiraa gathers it into one calm list titled “Mistakes”. A legend counts what is there — “2 Wrong · 1 Missed · 2 Notes” — and each row shows the word in the muṣḥaf’s own hand, with its mark. Nothing to fix? “Every word held.” Some āyāt not judged? “No slips found.” — it will not claim more than it heard. At the foot: “Practise the 3” (or however many), or “Recite again”. ### The word card Tap any marked word on the page and its card opens: the muṣḥaf’s line, what Qiraa heard (“You said”), the kind of slip, and buttons to play the qāriʾ and — while your clip is still on your phone — yourself. ‹ and › step through the page’s marks. Certain Qiraa misheard you? Tap “Not a mistake” and the word stops counting. Use it honestly: a slip you forgive is a slip you will not practise. ### Marks stay until you fix them Slips stay on the page, so you meet them the next time you open it. The card’s “Your tries” keeps every judged recitation of the āyah and states the rule: “Recite it clean once and the mark goes. Clean on 3 different days and it’s settled.” ### You › Mistakes Every counted slip — from reading, the Hifz trainer, a Halaqah or Test me — is kept under **You › Mistakes**: - **“Often missed”** — the words that keep returning, each with a plain line such as “Left out”, “A vowel” or “Held short”, and one button: “Practise these”. - **“Slips per page”** — your recent sittings, counted per page so short and long ones compare. “Fewer is better.” - **“To settle”** — the āyāt still marked. “Practise these 4” opens the reading screen and takes you through them one by one, ending “That’s all 4.” - **Your sittings by day** — Reading, Ḥifẓ, Halaqah or Test. Tap one to reopen its list. ### In the Hifz trainer and Test me The Hifz trainer explains a slip in one line — “A word was left out.”, “A vowel mark slipped on this word.”, “You said a different word here.” or “One letter slipped.” — beside the expected word, with “Hear it” and “Move on”. Test me ends each card “Held”, “Nearly”, “Slipped” or “Skipped”, and a wrong vowel is a slip there too. ## A ten-minute routine with the marks Marks are only worth something when they become practice. Ten minutes is enough: 1. **Choose five lines you know.** The end of a sūrah you pray with is ideal. 2. **Hide the text and recite.** Tap Hide, then the mic, and recite as you would to a teacher. 3. **Let the alert do its job.** Go back for the word (it is kept as “then fixed”) or carry on — but do not stop to argue with it. 4. **Legend first, then the amber.** Tap each amber word, play the qāriʾ, then yourself, and say the word aloud three times. 5. **Leave the grey.** Grey is about the room, not about you. If there is a lot of it, try somewhere quieter, nearer the phone. 6. **Practise what counted.** Tap “Practise the 3” and recite those āyāt again. 7. **Return on another day.** Clean once and the marks go; clean on three different days, the āyah is settled. Look at “To settle” once a week. If one word keeps returning under “Often missed”, take it to your teacher. A pattern is what a teacher can fix in a minute and an app can only point at. ## Questions about Qiraa’s marks ### What do the colours mean when Qiraa marks my recitation? Amber is a slip that counts: a wrong word, letter or vowel, a word from a look-alike āyah, a word left out or a word added. Gold is a note — a long madd held short. Grey means the word was not heard clearly. Neither gold nor grey ever counts, and no mark is ever red: red belongs to the open microphone. ### Does a wrong vowel count as a mistake? Yes. Since October 2026 the right word said with a wrong short vowel or ending is a slip like any other: drawn in amber and counted on the reading screen, in the Hifz trainer and in Test me. ### Why does a word I corrected still count? Because the first pass is the honest picture of what your memory gave you, and your review plan needs that picture. The list still credits the correction — “Wrong word · then fixed” — and the mark leaves the page once you recite the āyah clean. ### Does “not sure” count against me? No. A word Qiraa could not hear clearly gets a faint grey line. It never counts, never sounds the alert and never fails an āyah; the list names it once, under “Not heard clearly · not counted”. Qiraa’s safety checks can only soften a verdict, never turn doubt into an accusation. ### Will Qiraa show me the next word while I recite from memory? No. With the text hidden, each word comes back only after you have said it. When we first measured, 45.5% of words appeared before they were said; across every pace we test, that is now 0.0%. ### Can Qiraa’s marks replace a teacher? No. They show where your recitation and the printed page parted, between lessons. They cannot grant an ijāzah or replace a qualified teacher’s ear for the makhārij and tajwīd. ## Try this next Open a page you know well, tap Hide, then the mic, and recite five lines. When you stop, read the legend first. Tap one amber word, play the qāriʾ and then yourself, and say the word three times. Tomorrow, recite the same lines — if they come out clean, watch the mark go.