מדי midái says there is too much of something — a complaint. מספיק maspík says there is enough — a reassurance. English puts too in front of the adjective (too expensive) and enough behind it (big enough). Hebrew reverses both: מדי always follows, מספיק almost always precedes.
The two positions
| Meaning | Word | Position | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| too … | מדי | after the adjective or adverb | יקר מדי · מאוחר מדי · מהר מדי |
| … enough | מספיק | before the adjective | מספיק גדול · מספיק חזק |
Neither word ever inflects. The adjective beside them still agrees normally with its subject, which is where the gender slips happen.
החולצה יפה, אבל היא יקרה מדי בשבילי.
hakhultsá yafá, avál hi yekará midái bishvilí
The shirt's lovely, but it's too expensive for me. (חולצה is feminine, so יפה and יקרה are too — מדי is not)
קמתי מאוחר מדי ופספסתי את הרכבת.
kámti me'ukhár midái ufispásti et harakévet
I got up too late and missed the train.
הוא נוהג מהר מדי, אני לא נכנסת איתו לאוטו.
hu nohég mahér midái, aní lo nikhnéset itó la'óto
He drives too fast — I'm not getting in the car with him. (f. speaker, informal)
הבית לא מספיק גדול בשביל חמישה אנשים.
habáyit lo maspík gadól bishvíl khamishá anashím
The flat isn't big enough for five people.
את מספיק חזקה בשביל זה, תנסי שוב.
at maspík khazaká bishvíl ze, tenasí shuv
You're strong enough for this — try again. (to a woman)
The post-posed order טוב מספיק does exist and is not an error, but it is the minority: counting Hebrew Wikipedia with an insource:/…/ regex search on 15 August 2026, מספיק טוב returns 290 articles against 105 for טוב מספיק. Put מספיק in front and you will always sound normal.
יותר מדי — the form you need for nouns and verbs
Bare מדי modifies an adjective or adverb. The moment you want "too many books" or "I slept too much", the word becomes יותר מדי (literally "more than enough"), and it goes in front of the noun or after the verb.
יש יותר מדי אנשים בתור, בוא נחזור אחר כך.
yesh yotér midái anashím batór, bo nakhazór akhár kakh
There are too many people in the queue — let's come back later. (to a man)
אכלתי יותר מדי ועכשיו אני לא מצליח לזוז.
akhálti yotér midái ve'akhsháv aní lo matslíakh lazúz
I ate too much and now I can't move. (m. speaker)
Hebrew makes no too much / too many distinction: יותר מדי covers both, because Hebrew's quantifiers are not split by countability the way English much and many are. The mirror form פחות מדי pakhót midái is "too little / too few".
מספיק as a quantifier, and as a shout
Before a noun, מספיק needs no help at all — it is simply "enough". And on its own it is one of the most-used interjections in the language.
אין לי מספיק זמן לסיים את זה היום.
ein li maspík zman lesayém et ze hayóm
I haven't got enough time to finish this today.
מספיק! שניכם הולכים לחדר עכשיו.
maspík! shneikhém holkhím lakhéder akhsháv
That's enough! Both of you, go to your room right now. (informal — a parent)
"Too X to Y": בשביל and the written מכדי
To attach a consequence — too young to drive — everyday Hebrew uses בשביל plus an infinitive.
היא צעירה מדי בשביל לנהוג לבד.
hi tse'irá midái bishvíl linhóg levád
She's too young to drive on her own.
Written Hebrew has a dedicated word for exactly this slot: מכדי mikdéi, מ־ plus כדי, "beyond what suffices for". It is the standard too … to frame of argumentative and journalistic prose and it takes an infinitive or מכדי ש plus a clause. No general dictionary indexes it — Milog has no entry, ויקימילון has no entry — so the honest evidence is the corpus: on Hebrew Wikipedia, insource:/מכדי ל/ returns roughly 2,000 articles (a four-figure insource count is a floor, not an exact number) and insource:/מדי מכדי/ returns 442, both retrieved 15 August 2026. Read that as: it is thoroughly standard in writing, and you will rarely hear it in a café.
המחקר הזה חשוב מכדי להתעלם ממנו.
hamekhkár hazé khashúv mikdéi lehit'além miménu
This study is too important to ignore. (academic)
הראיות חלשות מדי מכדי להרשיע.
hare'ayót khalashót midái mikdéi leharshía
The evidence is too weak to convict. (journalistic — note that מדי and מכדי stack, which is very common)
One spelling, two words — and a third you must not write
Unpointed מדי is a homograph, and only the sentence separates the readings:
| Pointed | Built from | Means | Typical company |
|---|---|---|---|
| מִדַּי | מִן + דַּי | too, excessively | after an adjective: יקר מדי |
| מִדֵּי | מִן + דֵּי (construct of דַּי) | every, each | before a time word: מדי יום, מדי פעם |
Both, and the ban on writing either with a yod, come straight from the Academy of the Hebrew Language's answer יותר מדי ומדי פעם (published 5 February 2019; retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 27 November 2025): "the common full spelling of the phrases יוֹתֵר מִדַּי and מִדֵּי פַּעַם with a yod after the mem — 'מידי פעם' and 'יותר מידי' — is an error", since the prefix מִ־ never takes a yod after it, exactly as we write מתל אביב and מזמן. The Academy then warns against confusing these with מִיְּדֵי (מידי) = מן + ידֵי, "from the hands of", which does have a yod because the yod is a root consonant.
אנחנו נפגשים מדי שבוע באותו בית קפה.
anákhnu nifgashím midéi shavúa be'otó beit kafé
We meet every week at the same café. (this is מִדֵּי, the distributive one)
די: enough, quite, and stop it
די dai is the bare word both of those are built from, and in modern speech it does several jobs at once. ויקימילון gives it as "enough, a sufficient quantity"; as "no more" (די לאלימות, "no more violence"); and, marked סלנג, as a cry of disbelief — "די! לא נכון!", roughly "no way!". On top of that, in front of an adjective it is a mild downgrader meaning "quite, fairly", which is where learners lose the thread: די טוב is normally "pretty good", not "good enough".
הסרט היה די ארוך, אבל בסוף הוא השתלם.
haséret hayá dai arókh, avál basóf hu hishtalém
The film was fairly long, but it was worth it in the end.
די! שמעתי את הסיפור הזה כבר שלוש פעמים.
dai! shamáti et hasipúr hazé kvar shalósh pe'amím
Enough! I've heard this story three times already. (informal)
Common Mistakes
1. Putting מדי in front, the way English puts too. This is the single error that marks a sentence as translated.
❌ זה מדי יקר בשבילי
Incorrect — מדי follows what it modifies: זה יקר מדי בשבילי.
הדירה הזאת יפה, אבל היא קטנה מדי בשבילנו.
hadirá hazót yafá, avál hi ktaná midái bishvilénu
This flat is lovely, but it's too small for us.
2. Writing מידי. The yod is intuitive and wrong, and it lands you on a different word.
❌ שתיתי יותר מידי קפה
Incorrect as a spelling of yotér midái — מ־ takes no yod after it. Write יותר מדי; מידי with a yod is מן + ידי, 'from the hands of'.
שתיתי יותר מדי קפה היום, הידיים שלי רועדות.
shatíti yotér midái kafé hayóm, hayadáyim shelí ro'adót
I drank too much coffee today — my hands are shaking.
3. Reaching for מספיק when you meant to complain. The sentence stays grammatical and flips from complaint to reassurance, so nobody corrects you.
❌ הקפה מספיק חם
the coffee is too hot
Incorrect as a complaint — this says the coffee is hot ENOUGH, which is the opposite. To complain: הקפה חם מדי.
המרק חם מדי, תן לו להתקרר קצת.
hamarák kham midái, ten lo lehitkarér ktsat
The soup's too hot — let it cool down a bit. (to a man)
4. Hearing די as "enough" in front of an adjective. A comprehension error rather than a production one, and it inverts the speaker's verdict.
❌ הסרט היה די טוב
the film was good enough
Incorrect as a reading — before an adjective די means 'quite, fairly', so this is 'the film was pretty good'. 'Good enough' is מספיק טוב.
הארוחה הייתה די טובה, אבל חיכינו המון זמן.
ha'arukhá haytá dai tová, avál khikínu hamón zman
The meal was pretty good, but we waited ages. (informal)
5. Using bare מדי with a noun. מדי needs an adjective or an adverb to attach to; a noun takes יותר מדי.
❌ היו מדי אנשים במסיבה
Incorrect — with a noun the form is יותר מדי: היו יותר מדי אנשים במסיבה.
היו יותר מדי אנשים במסיבה, יצאנו מוקדם.
hayú yotér midái anashím bamesibá, yatsánu mukdám
There were too many people at the party — we left early.
Key Takeaways
- מדי follows what it modifies (יקר מדי, מהר מדי); מספיק precedes it (מספיק גדול). Neither word ever inflects.
- Post-posed טוב מספיק is attested but is the minority order — 290 : 105 on Hebrew Wikipedia for מספיק טוב against טוב מספיק.
- With a noun or a verb the word is יותר מדי, which covers both too much and too many; the mirror form is פחות מדי.
- מספיק before a noun is "enough" (מספיק זמן), on its own it is "that's enough!", and on a report card it is a bare pass.
- Too X to Y is בשביל + infinitive in speech and מכדי + infinitive in writing — and מדי and מכדי frequently stack (חלשות מדי מכדי להרשיע), on roughly a fifth of the Hebrew Wikipedia articles that use מכדי with an infinitive.
- Unpointed מדי is two words: מִדַּי "too" and מִדֵּי "every" (מדי יום). Writing either with a yod is an error the Academy names explicitly; מידי is "from the hands of".
- די before an adjective is "quite", not "enough" — די יקר is "fairly expensive", מספיק יקר is "expensive enough".
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Degree: מאוד, קצת, די, לגמרי, בכללA2 — The whole dial, top to bottom — and the half of it that no intensifier list covers: בקושי, כמעט לא and בכלל לא, three words whose meaning depends on whether there is a לא in the clause with them. Plus די, which is 'enough' in front of a noun and 'fairly' in front of an adjective.
- מאוד, ממש, לגמרי, דיA2 — Hebrew's dial for turning an adjective up or down. מאוד is the neutral default, ממש and כל כך and לגמרי carry the everyday weight, קצת and די take it back down — and נורא, which every dictionary glosses as terrible, is one of the commonest ways to say very.
- הרבה, קצת, מעט, מספיק, יותר מדיA2 — The everyday quantity words, and the good news about them: none of them inflects for anything. They stand in front of the noun and ignore gender, number and the article, and הרבה covers English many and much alike. The two things to get right are which word the verb agrees with, and the register split between spoken הרבה אנשים and written אנשים רבים.
- Adjectives That Govern a Preposition: מלא ב, גאה ב, דומה לB1 — A large group of Hebrew adjectives is incomplete without a particular preposition, and which one it is cannot be guessed from English. גאה takes ב, דומה takes ל, שונה takes מ, מצטער takes על — and the moment a pronoun follows, that preposition has to inflect.
- Comparatives: יותר … מ־A2 — Hebrew has no -er suffix and no word for than. Comparison is built from two free pieces — יותר (or פחות) beside the adjective, and מ־ glued to whatever you are comparing against — and the second piece is where English speakers come unstuck, because מ־ is a prefix and a prefix cannot stand in front of a pronoun.