כמה and איזה as Determiners

Two words stand in front of a bare noun and each does more than one job, with the jobs far enough apart that a learner who has met only one of them will misread the other. כמה káma asks how many and states a few. איזה éize asks which, points at some … or other, and exclaims what a!. Neither inflects for its noun, so nothing on the page tells you which reading you are looking at; the clause does. As pure question words they are on מתי, למה, איך, כמה and איזה, איזו, אילו — this page is about what they do in front of a noun.

כמה asks and answers with the same shape

In a question, כמה covers both of English's quantity words at once — how many for things you can count and how much for things you cannot.

In a statement, the same word means a few, several. No form changes, no article appears, nothing is added.

Here is the collision, in the shape you will actually meet it — the same two words twice in one exchange, once as a question and once as an answer:

Nothing distinguishes those two occurrences of כמה — same three letters, same position, same noun. What tells them apart is the clause: a question rises at the end and usually has nothing else in it, while a statement has a verb doing something else. English speakers import a question wherever they see כמה, because English how many is unambiguously interrogative while a few is a different phrase altogether. Hebrew does not make you choose a word at all.

Answering כמה: the numeral marks gender backwards

The answer to a כמה question is usually a numeral, and Hebrew numerals from three upwards mark gender invertedly: the ־ָה-suffixed form is the masculine one and the bare form is the feminine one. The numeral agrees with its noun perfectly normally; it is the marking that runs against instinct, because the ־ָה looks like a feminine ending everywhere else in the language.

One and two mark normally, and everything from twenty upwards is invariable. The full account is on gender polarity; for the rough answers — בערך, כ־, סביבות — see approximate quantities.

The third כמה: exclaiming

כמה in front of an adjective or adverb is neither a question nor a quantity. It is an exclamation — English how in how lovely.

This is old and entirely standard. The Academy of the Hebrew Language's answer איזה, איזו, אילו (published 31 January 2019, updated 24 April 2023; retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 26 April 2025) files it alongside the other Hebrew question words that double as exclamations — מַה נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה (Genesis 28:17), אֵיךְ נָפְלוּ גִבּוֹרִים (2 Samuel 1:19), and the Tosefta's כמה גדולים דברי חכמים. The exclamative is not a modern slackening of the question word; it is a use the question word has always had.

איזה, איזו, אילו — one paradigm, two registers

The normative set is three forms: איזה masculine, איזו feminine, אילו plural (both genders). The Academy's wording is that in careful language we distinguish the three by gender and number, "in all uses", and that the plural is spelled with a yod.

And now the part that matters more than the table. Spoken Israeli Hebrew levels all three to איזה — איזה בעיה, איזה אנשים, איזה תרופה — and this is not a modern slip that education will eventually mop up. The same Academy answer documents the levelling in Rabbinic and, especially, medieval Hebrew: דברי הרב ודברי התלמיד — איזה מהן נשמעין (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 29a), איזו מים כשרים ואיזו פסולים לנטילה (Shulchan Arukh, where מים is masculine plural and איזו is used anyway). It adds that the same looseness continues today, printing two heard examples: כמו איזה שני משוגעים and באיזה שנה עברית אנחנו. So this is a register choice with a pedigree running back to the Talmud, not a right-and-wrong.

The three jobs of איזה

One — interrogative "which". In front of a noun, this is the word English has to render as which or what.

Two — indefinite "some … or other". Same word, no question at all: it downgrades the noun to one of those, doesn't matter which, and I am not telling you more.

This use is old, and the Academy dates it to Rabbinic Hebrew, where איזה already carried an indefinite, non-questioning sense that it glosses with the modern word כלשהו: יביא איזה שירצה, "let him bring whichever he likes" (Mishnah, Menachot 13:1).

Three — exclamative "what a!" This is one of the highest-frequency patterns in casual speech, and it works for good news and bad alike.

The exclamative, unlike the other two, is modern: the Academy files it under עברית חדשה, printing one example of each polarity — איזה יום שמח לי היום and איזה אסון נורא — and puts איזה there alongside מה and איך, the other question words that moonlight as exclamations.

אילו is also the word for "if"

Unpointed, אילו is two separate words. אֵילוּ éilu is the plural of איזה; אִילּוּ ilú is the counterfactual if of אילו ידעתי, הייתי בא — "if I had known, I would have come". The dictionaries keep them apart — Hebrew Wiktionary heads the conditional with its classical pointing אִלּוּ and files it under the spelling אלו — but running text collides them, because ktiv male writes that chirik with a yod like every other one: an insource:/…/ search of Hebrew Wikipedia on 16 August 2026 returns 22 articles for אילו הייתי against 1 for אלו הייתי. Word order sorts them out in practice: the interrogative is followed by a noun, the conditional by a whole clause.

There is a second, closer trap alongside it. אֵלּוּ élu — one yod short — is the demonstrative these, and the Academy sets the pair out with four sentences worth memorising as a block:

Rows three and four are the Academy's own point: the question mark is not what tells you which word you are reading, and neither is the sentence type. Only the yod is.

Common Mistakes

1. Using מה in front of a noun to mean "which". English what book and which book are both available, so מה gets recruited for a slot it cannot fill. מה heads an adjective (מה יפה) or stands alone (מה קרה?); the word that heads a noun is איזה.

2. Putting a definite noun straight after כמה. English a few of the students and how many of the students need no extra machinery, so the מ־ that Hebrew requires never gets written.

3. Answering a כמה question with the wrong-gender numeral. The ־ָה looks feminine, so it goes onto feminine counts by reflex — and it is the masculine marker.

4. Reading a statement כמה as a question. A comprehension error rather than a production one, and it produces a sentence that almost makes sense, which is why it survives.

Key Takeaways

• כמה is one word doing three jobs: how many / how much in a question, a few, several in a statement, and how …! in front of an adjective. Nothing marks the difference but the clause.
• It is invariable and prenominal and takes no article. A definite noun needs the partitive מ־: כמה מהחברים, never *כמה החברים.
• The answer to a כמה question inverts its gender marking from three upwards: שלושה בנים but שלוש בנות.
• איזה / איזו / אילו is the careful paradigm; spoken Hebrew levels all three to איזה, and the Academy documents that levelling from the Talmud and the Shulchan Arukh onwards. It is a register contrast, not an error.
• איזה has three jobs of its own: which (איזה ספר?), some … or other (איזה בחור התקשר), and what a! (איזה בלגן) — the last being everywhere in casual speech.
• Unpointed אילו is also אִילּוּ "if" in a counterfactual, and its near-twin אלו is the demonstrative these. אילו בגדים ארזת? against אלו הבגדים שארזתי.
• Hebrew fixes מה for a following adjective and איזה for a following noun. *מה ספר is not a possible Hebrew phrase.