Comparative and Proportional Clauses: ככל ש… כך…

Comparing two adjectives is יותר … מ־, and comparing two things for sameness is כמו. This page is what happens when the thing you are comparing is a whole clause — and above all the proportional, where two clauses rise and fall together.

ככל ש: two clauses on one dial

ככל ש־ heads a clause that sets a scale; the other clause moves along with it. English does this with a doubled article — the harder you push, the worse it gets — a construction with no verb, no conjunction and no logic you can port. Hebrew's version is ordinary syntax: a subordinate clause introduced by ככל ש־, and a main clause typically opened by כך.

What it does not require

Textbooks print ככל ש as a slot template — ככל ש + verb + יותר, כך + verb + יותר — and then you meet real Hebrew and the template breaks. Milog describes ככל ש as a linking word of degree or progression, usually appearing in a doubled structure, and its own three example sentences are not all the same shape: one has כך and יותר, one has neither כך nor יותר, and one has יותר but no כך. So:

• כך is canonical, not compulsory. Leave it out and the sentence is still good; the clause can even come second.
• יותר is optional. Some scales are already comparative in the verb (התחזק, נחלש, פחת, גדל), and adding יותר to those is padding.

The tense inside the clause

ככל ש־ behaves like every other subordinator in Hebrew: the verb takes the tense the event actually has, which for a future scale means a future verb where English forces a present. ככל שתדחה above is future because the putting-off has not happened yet, exactly as in temporal clauses. A past scale takes the past (ככל שהשנים עברו), and a standing generalisation takes the present.

The two halves are settled separately, so they need not match: a past ככל ש clause can be answered by a present main clause when the result still holds. Where they do match — ככל שתדחה … יהיה לך קשה, future against future — it is not agreement but coincidence, each verb answering for its own event rather than copying its neighbour.

The lighter twin: כמה ש

Alongside ככל ש־ there is כמה ש־, which does the same degree work and dominates the as … as possible frame: insource:/כמה שיותר/ returns 1,322 on he.wikipedia — a floor, so read the ratio and not the absolute — against 100 for insource:/ככל שיותר/ (regex form, 17 August 2026).

The formal equivalent of that frame is ככל האפשר or ככל שניתן. Swap those into the sentence above and you have written a memo; swap כמה שיותר into a memo and you have written a text message.

The other ככל ש, which is not proportional at all

The same string has a second job that has nothing to do with two clauses moving together: to the extent that, insofar as, as far as. Here there is no scale on the other side — just a hedge.

This sense is the backbone of Hebrew officialese — see the letter on an official letter — and it is also where the frozen phrases live: ככל האפשר as far as possible (2,828 hits on he.wikipedia and a floor at that, regex form, 17 August 2026), ככל שניתן (398), ככל הנראה apparently. Those take no clause at all and are best learned whole.

מאשר: a clause, a phrase, or an infinitive

Learners are routinely taught a clean split — יותר מ־ before a noun, יותר מאשר before a clause. The dictionary does not support it. Milog's מאשר entry glosses it simply as in comparison with; than, and the corpus puts all three complement types after it with no fuss.

That last frame is worth checking rather than trusting, because it is one an English speaker builds by instinct. insource:/עדיף ל.{2,15} מאשר ל/ returns 124 on he.wikipedia, and all six sampled hits are the real thing (העדיף לפרוש מהצבא מאשר להתנכר…, שעדיף לעשות כך מאשר להימנע…). The bare מ־ rival, measured with the same frame, insource:/עדיף ל.{2,15} מל[א-ת]/, returns 56 (regex form, 17 August 2026) — so עדיף לחכות מלהגיש is also good Hebrew, not a corruption of the מאשר version.

The one thing מאשר genuinely cannot do is what its shape tempts you into: a bare מ־ cannot take a finite verb. If the second half of your comparison is a clause, you need מאשר, or ממה ש־ (insource:/יותר ממה ש[א-ת]/ = 1,130, a floor), or the compressed מש־.

The neighbours

כמו ש־ turns a clause into an as-comparison and is worked out on as … as, along with its written twin כפי ש־; the bare preposition is on כ־ and כמו.

At the top of the scale sit הכי and ביותר, whose difference is structural before it is a matter of register — הכי goes between a definite noun and a bare adjective, ביותר follows an adjective that already carries the article. Both, and the register question, belong to superlatives.

Common Mistakes

1. Building the proportional out of יותר alone. English's the more … the more has no conjunction in it, so there is nothing to translate, and the learner reaches for the only comparative word they know. יותר cannot head a clause.

2. Dropping the ש. ככל on its own is a different word — it heads a noun phrase, as in ככל האפשר and ככל יכולתו. Put a clause after it and the sentence has no structure at all.

3. A finite verb straight after מ־. This is what the invented יותר מ־ before nouns only rule leaves you with when the second half turns out to be a clause after all. מ־ is a prefix on a noun; it cannot govern a verb.

Key Takeaways

• The proportional is ככל ש־ + clause, כך + clause: ככל שהתקרבנו לים, כך הרוח נעשתה חזקה יותר. Learn that shape for production — it is never wrong.
• But כך is canonical, not compulsory, and יותר is optional: Milog's own examples include one with neither. Read with the flexible version or ordinary sentences will look broken.
• The verb inside the ככל ש clause takes the tense the event has — ככל שתדחה for a future scale, ככל שהשנים עברו for a past one.
• A second, unrelated ככל ש means to the extent that: ככל שיתקבלו פרטים נוספים, plus the frozen ככל האפשר, ככל שניתן, ככל הנראה. The lighter כמה ש־ owns the as … as possible frame instead — כמה שיותר מהר, 1,322 hits against 100.
• מאשר takes a clause, a prepositional phrase or an infinitive — מאשר נראה לנו, מאשר בסופר, מאשר להגיש — so the tidy מ־ for nouns, מאשר for clauses rule is not a rule. What is real: bare מ־ cannot govern a finite verb; use מאשר or ממה ש־.