English turns an adjective into an adverb with -ly: quick → quickly, beautiful → beautifully. Hebrew has no such suffix, and its everyday answer is to change nothing at all — you take the bare masculine singular adjective and drop it beside the verb. The written language has other options (ב־ plus a noun, the suffixed classes); this is the one that lives in speech.
The whole rule: it does not agree
This is the point, and it is worth dwelling on because it runs against everything you have learned so far. A Hebrew adjective agrees with its noun in gender and number, always, with no exceptions worth the name. An adjective used adverbially agrees with nothing. It freezes in the masculine singular and stays there no matter who the subject is.
הוא מדבר מהר מדי, אני לא מצליח לעקוב.
hu medabér mahér midái, aní lo matslíakh la'akóv
He talks too fast — I can't keep up. (m. speaker)
היא מדברת מהר בדיוק כמוהו, ואף אחד לא מבין אותם.
hi medabéret mahér bediyúk kmóhu, ve'áf ekhád lo mevín otám
She talks fast exactly like him, and nobody understands either of them. (מדברת is feminine; מהר is not)
היא עבדה קשה בשביל זה, מגיע לה.
hi avdá kashé bishvíl ze, magía la
She worked hard for this — she deserves it.
Notice how the second sentence looks: מדברת carries a feminine ending, מהר does not, and the sentence is correct. English speakers who have been trained to make everything agree feel the mismatch as an error. It is the opposite — the mismatch is how Hebrew tells you the word is describing the action, not the person.
The everyday inventory
| Adjective, m. sg. | Feminine | Used adverbially | The adverb means |
|---|---|---|---|
| טוֹב | טוֹבָה | טוב | well |
| יָפֶה | יָפָה | יפה | nicely, well |
| חָזָק | חֲזָקָה | חזק | loudly, hard |
| קָשֶׁה | קָשָׁה | קשה | hard |
| יָשָׁר | יְשָׁרָה | ישר | straight, directly |
| נָכוֹן | נְכוֹנָה | נכון | correctly |
| גָּרוּעַ | גְּרוּעָה | גרוע | badly |
Read the first and third columns together: they are the same word. That identity is the whole pattern.
Two words sit in the same slot without being adjectives at all, and it is worth knowing which is which. מהר is not the adjective for "fast" — that is מָהִיר. ויקימילון classes מַהֵר as a תואר הפועל (adverb) in its own right, derived as an infinitive form of the pi'el verb מיהר. לאט is לְ־ plus the noun אַט, a frozen prepositional phrase; it is handled with the other leftovers. Neither has an adjective twin to agree with, which is why neither ever changes either.
תדברי חזק יותר, לא שומעים אותך מאחורה.
tedabrí khazák yotér, lo shom'ím otákh me'akhóra
Speak up — they can't hear you at the back. (to a woman)
תמשיך ישר עד הרמזור ואז שמאלה.
tamshíkh yashár ad haramzór ve'áz smóla
Keep going straight to the traffic light and then left. (to a man)
שיחקנו גרוע במחצית הראשונה, ובשנייה כבר היה מאוחר מדי.
sikháknu garúa bamakhatsít harishoná, uvashniyá kvar hayá me'ukhár midái
We played badly in the first half, and by the second it was already too late.
טוב and היטב: two registers, not a right and a wrong
Textbooks often mark adverbial טוב as sloppy and היטב as the "real" word. That is a register split, not a correction. ויקימילון gives הֵיטֵב as an established תואר הפועל meaning באופן טוב, באופן יסודי — "in a good manner, thoroughly" — from the root י־ט־ב in the הֶקְטֵל pattern, citing Deuteronomy 13:15 (וְדָרַשְׁתָּ וְחָקַרְתָּ וְשָׁאַלְתָּ הֵיטֵב) and Jonah 4:9 among others. Both words are Hebrew. They belong to different rooms.
הבנתי טוב מה שאמרת, פשוט לא הסכמתי.
hevánti tov ma she'amárta, pashút lo hiskámti
I understood you perfectly well — I just didn't agree. (informal; to a man)
קראתי את החוזה היטב לפני שחתמתי.
karáti et hakhozé heitév lifnéi shekhatámti
I read the contract thoroughly before I signed. (formal)
The minimal pair the invariance creates
Because the adverb refuses to agree and the adjective must, one letter can move the praise from the language to the speaking.
הוא מדבר עברית טובה, אוצר מילים עשיר, בלי שגיאות.
hu medabér ivrít tová, otsár milím ashír, bli shgi'ót
He speaks good Hebrew — rich vocabulary, no mistakes. (טובה agrees with עברית, which is feminine: the Hebrew is good)
הוא מדבר עברית טוב, אבל עוד יש לו מבטא כבד.
hu medabér ivrít tov, avál od yesh lo mivtá kavéd
He speaks Hebrew well, but he still has a heavy accent. (informal; טוב is invariant, so it describes the speaking)
A word on that second sentence, because it is worth being honest about how thin the ground is. Searching Hebrew Wikipedia across all namespaces (insource:/…/ regex, 15 August 2026), מדבר עברית טוב returns 3 hits and מדבר טוב עברית returns 2 — and most of them are people writing about their own imperfect Hebrew. Careful Hebrew keeps the object-then-adverb order but reaches for היטב, which is solidly attested with language names: שלט בעברית היטב, לא ידעו עברית היטב, דיברה אנגלית היטב. So what the corpus supports is the object-then-adverb order; the choice between טוב and היטב is the register matter, not the placement.
יפה: adverb, and then applause
יפה does manner-adverb duty (היא שרה יפה), and it also stands alone as praise for something someone did or said. In that use it is not describing anything visible; it is closer to English nicely done or good on you.
יפה שאמרת לו את זה, מגיע לו לשמוע.
yafé she'amárta lo et ze, magía lo lishmóa
Good on you for telling him that — he needed to hear it. (to a man)
יופי, אז נסגר! נתראה בשמונה.
yófi, az nisgár! nitra'é bishmóne
Great, that's settled then! See you at eight. (informal — יופי is the noun 'beauty' used as an everyday interjection)
Common Mistakes
1. Making the adverb agree with a feminine subject. The single most predictable error, and it produces a sentence that is grammatical and means something else.
❌ היא מבשלת טובה
Incorrect as 'she cooks well' — as written this is a nominal sentence meaning 'she is a good cook'. The adverb does not agree: היא מבשלת טוב.
✅ סבתא שלי מבשלת טוב, אבל בלי מתכון היא לא מוכנה לעבוד.
sávta shelí mevashélet tov, avál bli matkón hi lo mukhaná la'avód
My grandmother cooks well, but she won't work without a recipe.
2. Making it agree in the plural. Same error one step further out, and this time nothing rescues it.
❌ הן ענו נכונות
Incorrect — the adverb stays masculine singular whoever answered: הן ענו נכון.
✅ שתיהן ענו נכון, אז נתתי לשתיהן את הנקודה.
shteihén anú nakhón, az natáti lishteihén et hanekudá
They both answered correctly, so I gave them both the point.
3. Reaching for מהיר because it is the adjective you learned. Fast is מהיר; fast beside a verb is מהר. They are not interchangeable, and only one of them is an adverb.
❌ הוא מדבר מהיר
Incorrect as 'he talks fast' — מהיר is the adjective. The adverb is מהר: הוא מדבר מהר.
✅ הוא מדבר מהר, אבל הכתב שלו איטי ומסודר.
hu medabér mahér, avál haktáv sheló ití umesudár
He talks fast, but his handwriting is slow and tidy. (איטי is the adjective; מהר is the adverb)
4. Gluing a preposition on to make it look like an adverb. Learners who have met במהירות conclude that the adverbial form needs a ב־, and build one.
❌ הוא רץ במהר
Incorrect — במהר is not a Hebrew word (as a standalone word it returns nothing in Hebrew Wikipedia's article space, 15 August 2026; the only hits anywhere are three talk-page slips for במהרה). It is either הוא רץ מהר or הוא רץ במהירות.
✅ הוא רץ מהר, אבל הוא נשבר אחרי שני קילומטרים.
hu rats mahér, avál hu nishbár akharéi shnei kilométrim
He runs fast, but he cracks after two kilometres.
Key Takeaways
- The everyday Hebrew manner adverb is the bare masculine singular adjective, unchanged: טוב, יפה, חזק, קשה, ישר, נכון, גרוע.
- It never agrees — not with a feminine subject, not with a plural one. The absence of agreement is the signal that the word is adverbial.
- מהר and לאט share the slot but are not adjectives: מהר is a תואר הפועל built on an infinitive of pi'el מיהר (ויקימילון), and לאט is the preposition לְ־ on the noun אַט.
- טוב and היטב are both correct and are separated by register — היטב is an established biblical adverb of the הֶקְטֵל pattern, not a correction of טוב.
- The adverb follows the object: מדבר עברית טוב (informal) / ידע עברית היטב (formal), against עברית טובה, where the agreeing adjective praises the Hebrew rather than the speaking.
- יפה doubles as manner adverb and as standalone praise, with יופי as its everyday interjection.
Now practice Hebrew
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- How Hebrew Makes Adverbs (It Mostly Doesn't)A2 — There is no Hebrew ־ly. No single suffix turns any adjective into an adverb, so Hebrew assembles adverbs four different ways — a bare adjective, ב plus an abstract noun, a small suffixed class, and a large stock of words that were simply always adverbs. This page sorts them and sends you to the right one.
- Predicative vs Attributive PositionB1 — The same adjective in the same place after the same noun does two completely different jobs, and one letter decides which: הבית הגדול names a house, הבית גדול claims something about it. Definiteness is the only thing that changes between the two — gender and number agree either way, in every tense.
- Manner Adverbs and Where They SitB1 — A manner adverbial's default home is the end of the clause — after the verb and after the object. Moving it earlier is not an error but a signal, and because a Hebrew manner adverb is often a bare masculine adjective, its position is what tells you which of the two it is.
- ב + Noun as an Adverb: בשקט, בזהירות, במהירותA2 — Hebrew's most general adverb machine: glue ב־ onto an abstract noun and you have a manner adverb. No vocabulary list can close the class, because you can build a new one from any abstract noun you know — and the definite article never, ever gets inside.
- Adverbs in ־ִית and ־וֹת: אישית, סופית, קשותC1 — Two suffixes make adverbs out of words that look like adjectives — ־ִית, which is alive and all over the newspaper, and ־וֹת, which looks like a feminine plural with no noun in sight and stalls readers who try to parse it. Plus the frozen leftovers that belong to no live pattern at all.