English builds a comparative two ways — a suffix (tall → taller) or a helper word (more interesting) — and then joins the two halves with than. Hebrew has neither the suffix nor the word than. It has one free word, יותר yotér "more", and one prefix, מ־, and every comparison in the language is made out of those. The superlative is on הכי and ביותר; saying two things are equal is on as … as.
The frame
X יותר ADJECTIVE מ־Y. The adjective still agrees with X in gender and number — יותר changes nothing and never inflects itself.
המנה שלך נראית יותר טובה משלי, נתחלף?
hamaná shelkhá nir'ét yotér tová mishelí, nitkhaléf?
Your dish looks better than mine — shall we swap? (to a man; מנה is feminine, so נראית and טובה are both feminine)
הוא יותר גבוה ממני, אבל אני מבוגר ממנו בשנתיים.
hu yotér gavóa miméni, avál aní mevugár miménu bishnatáyim
He's taller than me, but I'm two years older than him. (m. speaker)
היום יותר חם מאתמול, קח בקבוק מים.
hayóm yotér kham me'etmól, kakh bakbúk máyim
It's hotter today than yesterday — take a bottle of water. (to a man)
Note the second example: מבוגר does the work of older with no special form at all. Hebrew has no suppletive comparatives — no good/better, no bad/worse. טוב stays טוב and gets יותר in front of it, which is one thing about this system that is genuinely easier than English.
Both orders are live: יותר גבוה and גבוה יותר
יותר can stand before the adjective or after it, and both are current Hebrew.
המסלול הזה קשה יותר, אבל הנוף שווה את זה.
hamaslúl hazé kashé yotér, avál hanóf shavé et ze
This route is harder, but the view is worth it.
הדירה החדשה קטנה יותר, אבל היא הרבה יותר שקטה.
hadirá hakhadashá ktaná yotér, avál hi harbé yotér shketá
The new flat is smaller, but it's a lot quieter. (both orders in one sentence)
Textbooks often label the post-posed order "formal" and the pre-posed one "spoken". This build could not source that split, and a corpus count does not support it cleanly either. Counting Hebrew Wikipedia — an insource:/…/ regex search, 10 August 2026, and the large figures are floors rather than exact counts — the post-posed order leads by about 11 : 1 for גבוה (5,011 : 452), by about 2.4 : 1 for חשוב (515 : 211), and by almost nothing at all for מעניין (51 : 44). A register rule would not behave like that. What the numbers actually show is that the preference is lexical: it settles per adjective and per fixed phrase, and both orders are correct for all of them.
מ־ takes four shapes
Whatever you are comparing against, מ־ attaches to it. What that looks like depends on what comes next.
| Compared against | Shape | Example |
|---|---|---|
| an indefinite noun | מ־ + noun | גדול מבית — bigger than a house |
| a definite noun | מֵה־ (the ה stays visible) | גדול מהבית — bigger than the house |
| a clause | מִמַּה שֶּׁ־ or מֵאֲשֶׁר | יותר קשה ממה שחשבתי |
| a pronoun | a suffixed form | גדול ממני — bigger than me |
Row two is worth a second look: מ־ is not one of the prepositions that swallows the article. ב, ל and כ do that; מ does not, so a definite comparison keeps its ה where you can see it — מהספר, מהקודם, מהמסעדה.
הספר הזה הרבה יותר מעניין מהקודם.
haséfer hazé harbé yotér me'anyén mehakodém
This book is far more interesting than the last one.
זה יצא יותר מסובך ממה שחשבתי.
ze yatsá yotér mesubákh mimá shekhashávti
It turned out more complicated than I thought.
עדיף לדחות את הפגישה מאשר להגיע לא מוכנים.
adíf lidkhót et hapgishá me'ashér lehagía lo mukhaním
Better to postpone the meeting than to turn up unprepared. (מאשר is what you reach for when the two halves are infinitives or whole phrases)
The suffixed forms, and three things nobody tells you
When the thing you are comparing against is a pronoun, מ־ has nothing to prefix itself to, so the pronoun becomes a suffix. Here is the paradigm as the Academy of the Hebrew Language gives it, on נטיית מילות היחס (retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 8 December 2025) and in its answer ממנוּ או מאיתנו? (snapshot of 23 June 2025).
| Person | Form | Reads |
|---|---|---|
| than me | מִמֶּנִּי | miméni |
| than you (m. sg.) | מִמְּךָ | mimkhá |
| than you (f. sg.) | מִמֵּךְ | mimékh |
| than him | מִמֶּנּוּ | miménu |
| than her | מִמֶּנָּה | miména |
| than us | מִמֶּנּוּ · everyday מֵאִיתָּנוּ | miménu · me'itánu |
| than you (m. pl.) | מִכֶּם | mikém |
| than you (f. pl.) | מִכֶּן | mikén |
| than them (m.) | מֵהֶם | mehém |
| than them (f.) | מֵהֶן | mehén |
One. The second-person plurals are מִכֶּם and מִכֶּן — not anything built on the מִמֶּנ־ stem. The Academy's explanation is that the נ of מִן is swallowed and a dagesh takes its place, while the singular forms double the preposition instead (מִמֶּנִּי is literally מִן + מִן + נִי). So the plural is the simpler form, not a harder one.
Two. מִמֶּנּוּ is genuinely ambiguous — it is both "than him" and "than us", and always has been. The Academy documents both readings from Genesis: הֲמִן הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לְבִלְתִּי אֲכָל מִמֶּנּוּ אָכָלְתָּ (3:11) is "from it", and לֵךְ מֵעִמָּנוּ כִּי עָצַמְתָּ מִמֶּנּוּ מְאֹד (26:16) is "than us". Because of that clash most speakers reach for מֵאִיתָּנוּ for "than us" — a form that belongs to the preposition מֵאֵת rather than to מן, is fully normative, and is, in the Academy's words, common at every register.
Three. The pronunciation miméno, with an o, for "than him" is widespread and is explicitly called an error by the Academy: both persons take a shuruk, and the o is a back-formation from ordinary third-person suffixes like סִפְרוֹ and אֶצְלוֹ.
היא מבינה בזה הרבה יותר ממני, תדבר איתה.
hi meviná bazé harbé yotér miméni, tedabér itá
She understands this much better than I do — talk to her. (to a man)
אתה מכיר את העיר יותר מאיתנו, תוביל.
atá makír et ha'ír yotér me'itánu, tovíl
You know the city better than we do — you lead. (to a man)
אין אף אחד שמכיר את המקום הזה טוב ממך.
ein af ekhád shemakír et hamakóm hazé tov mimékh
There's nobody who knows this place better than you. (to a woman — and note there is no יותר here at all)
That last example makes a point worth stating outright: once מ־ is in the sentence, יותר is optional. טוב ממך already means "better than you", because the comparison is carried by the preposition. יותר adds emphasis and is extremely common, but it is not what makes the sentence a comparison. The full inflection, including the forms of מן that this page only samples, is on ממני, ממך, ממנו.
Turning the dial: הרבה יותר, קצת יותר, פחות
הרבה יותר is "much more", קצת יותר "a bit more". Both stand in front of יותר, never in front of the adjective. Downwards, פחות pakhót replaces יותר and everything else stays put.
הכיסא הזה קצת יותר נוח, שבי עליו.
hakisé hazé ktsat yotér nóakh, shví aláv
This chair's a bit more comfortable — sit on that one. (to a woman)
הקפה כאן פחות טוב ממה שהיה פעם, אבל המקום עדיין נחמד.
hakafé kan pakhót tov mimá shehayá pá'am, avál hamakóm adáyin nekhmád
The coffee here is less good than it used to be, but the place is still nice.
There is a second way to say "much": בהרבה, placed after the whole comparison — הדירות הישנות גדולות בהרבה מהחדשות. And "too much" is a different construction altogether, with מדי, which has its own page: מדי and מספיק.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting הרבה straight onto the adjective. English says much taller in two words, so הרבה גבוה looks like a faithful translation. הרבה cannot modify an adjective; it modifies יותר.
❌ הוא הרבה גבוה ממני
Incorrect — הרבה attaches to יותר, not to the adjective: הוא הרבה יותר גבוה ממני, or הוא גבוה ממני בהרבה.
✅ הוא הרבה יותר גבוה ממני, אבל אני מנצח אותו בכל משחק.
hu harbé yotér gavóa miméni, avál aní menatséakh otó bekhól miskhák
He's much taller than me, but I beat him at every game. (m. speaker)
2. Leaving the adjective in its dictionary form. יותר does not inflect, and learners quietly conclude that the adjective in a comparison does not either.
❌ הדירה הזאת יותר גדול מהקודמת
Incorrect — the adjective still agrees with דירה, which is feminine: הדירה הזאת יותר גדולה מהקודמת.
✅ החולצה הזאת יותר יפה מהאחרת, אבל היא יקרה בטירוף.
hakhultsá hazót yotér yafá meha'akhéret, avál hi yekará betirúf
This shirt is nicer than the other one, but it's insanely expensive.
3. Building the second-person plural on the singular stem. You learn ממני, ממך, ממנו, and ממכם falls out of the pattern by analogy. The Academy states the correct forms outright: מִכֶּם and מִכֶּן.
❌ הם מבוגרים ממכם בכמה שנים
Incorrect — the נ of מן is absorbed and the second-person plurals are מִכֶּם and מִכֶּן: הם מבוגרים מכם בכמה שנים.
✅ הם מבוגרים מכם בכמה שנים, נכון?
hem mevugarím mikém bekhamá shaním, nakhón?
They're a few years older than you, aren't they? (to a group)
4. Comparing your car to a person. English lets than yours stand for than your car, and the Hebrew suffixed forms make it far too easy to attach the wrong one. Both sentences below are grammatical Hebrew; only one of them means what you wanted.
❌ המכונית שלי יותר חדשה ממך
Incorrect as 'newer than yours' — as written it compares the car to you personally. To compare it to your car: המכונית שלי יותר חדשה משלך.
✅ המכונית שלי יותר חדשה משלך, אבל שלך הרבה יותר נוחה.
hamekhonít shelí yotér khadashá mishelkhá, avál shelkhá harbé yotér nokhá
My car is newer than yours, but yours is much more comfortable. (to a man)
Key Takeaways
- Hebrew has no comparative suffix and no word for than. Comparison is יותר (or פחות) beside the adjective plus מ־ on the thing compared against.
- The adjective still agrees with its subject: המנה יותר טובה, הדירה יותר גדולה. יותר itself never changes.
- Both orders are live — יותר גבוה and גבוה יותר. The preference is lexical, not a register rule; a written corpus splits 11 : 1 for גבוה and 51 : 44 for מעניין.
- מ־ appears as מ־ before a noun, מֵה־ before a definite one (the ה stays visible), ממה ש / מאשר before a clause, and as a suffixed form before a pronoun.
- The paradigm's three traps: the 2nd plural is מִכֶּם / מִכֶּן; מִמֶּנּוּ means both "than him" and "than us", which is why מֵאִיתָּנוּ exists; and miméno with an o is an error for "than him".
- Once מ־ is there, יותר is optional — טוב ממך is already "better than you".
- הרבה יותר and קצת יותר modify יותר, never the adjective. *הרבה גבוה is not Hebrew.
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- מ־ / מן: From, Out Of, ThanA1 — The one prefix that behaves differently from the others: ב, ל and כ swallow the definite article, מ־ leaves it standing. It also does a job no English preposition does — it is the word for 'than'.
- Superlatives: הכי and ביותרA2 — Hebrew marks the superlative twice over — הכי in front of the adjective and ביותר behind it — and the difference between them is structural before it is stylistic: הכי sits between a definite noun and a bare adjective, while ביותר follows an adjective that carries the article. Get that right and the register question mostly answers itself.
- As … As: כמו, כ־, באותה מידהB2 — English wraps a comparison of equality in a two-part frame — as tall as — and Hebrew has no first half at all: it just says גבוה כמוני. That missing slot is where learners put כל כך, which turns the sentence into something else entirely, and the fix is to stop looking for it.