Saying 'Some' and 'Any' in Hebrew | Hebrew Grammar

There is no Hebrew determiner corresponding to English some, and none corresponding to English any. That is the whole difficulty: an English speaker composing a Hebrew sentence feels a slot open where those words go and starts hunting for something to put in it. Nothing goes in it. What this page does is sort the English uses into the four Hebrew strategies that cover them, in the order you should reach for them.

Strategy one, and the default: nothing

English some in front of a plain noun is, nine times out of ten, translated by no word at all. Hebrew has no indefinite article to begin with, so a bare noun already means an unspecified amount of this.

יש חלב במקרר, אני חושב.

yesh khaláv bamekarér, aní khoshév

There's some milk in the fridge, I think. (m. speaker)

קניתי לחם וגבינה, אין יותר מקום בשקית.

kaníti lékhem ugviná, ein yotér makóm basakít

I bought some bread and some cheese — there's no more room in the bag.

אתה רוצה קפה או שאתה ממהר?

atá rotsé kafé o she'atá memahér?

Do you want some coffee, or are you in a hurry? (to a man)

Four English some*s across those three sentences, and four Hebrew nouns standing bare. Notice that the last sentence would take *any in English — do you want any coffee? — and Hebrew still does the same nothing. That is the first real payoff of this page: the some/any alternation that English enforces does not exist in Hebrew, so a whole layer of decision-making disappears.

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Before you reach for a word, ask whether the English sentence would survive without some. "There's milk in the fridge", "I bought bread and cheese", "Do you want coffee?" — all fine, all meaning the same thing. When some is deletable in English, it is absent in Hebrew. Only when deleting it changes the meaning do you need one of the strategies below.

Strategy two: when the quantity is the point

If some is carrying real quantitative weight — a few rather than many, a bit rather than a lot — Hebrew has words for that, and they are the ordinary quantifiers. כמה for things you count, קצת for things you measure.

קניתי כמה בקבוקים ליתר ביטחון.

kaníti káma bakbukím leyéter bitakhón

I bought a few bottles just in case.

יש קצת חלב, אבל לא מספיק לשניים.

yesh ktsat khaláv, avál lo maspík lishnáyim

There's a bit of milk, but not enough for two.

Both words have their own pages — כמה and איזה and the quantifiers — including the trap that neither of them can stand in front of a definite noun without מ־.

Strategy three: when the referent is genuinely unidentified

Now the case where English some means one of them, and I cannot or will not say which. Hebrew has two families for this, and they differ in register and in word order.

Family	Forms	Position	Register
the ־שהו series	אֵיזֶשֶׁהוּ · אֵיזוֹשֶׁהִי	before the noun	everyday speech, ordinary writing
the כלשהו series	כׇּלְשֶׁהוּ · כׇּלְשֶׁהִי · כׇּלְשֶׁהֵם · כׇּלְשֶׁהֵן	after the noun	(formal) — notices, forms, reports

יש איזושהי בעיה עם הקליטה, אני שומע אותך חתוך.

yesh éizoshehi be'ayá im haklitá, aní shoméa otkhá khatúkh

There's some problem with the reception — you're breaking up. (to a man, m. speaker)

הוא מצא איזשהו תירוץ ולא בא בסוף.

hu matsá éizeshehu terúts veló ba basóf

He found some excuse or other and didn't come in the end.

מסיבה כלשהי הם ביטלו את הפגישה ברגע האחרון.

misibá kolshehí hem bitlú et hapgishá baréga ha'akharón

For some reason or other they cancelled the meeting at the last minute. (a shade formal — סיבה comes first, כלשהי second)

אם יש ספק כלשהו, עדיף להתקשר ולשאול.

im yesh safék kolshehú, adíf lehitkashér velish'ól

If there is any doubt at all, it's better to ring and ask. (formal)

לא נמצאו ליקויים כלשהם בבדיקה.

lo nimtse'ú likuyím kolshehém babdiká

No defects of any kind were found in the inspection. (formal — an inspection report)

The word order is not a stylistic preference; it is what each family does. Counting Hebrew Wikipedia with an insource:/…/ regex search on 16 August 2026: בעיה כלשהי returns 13 articles and כלשהי בעיה 0; סיבה כלשהי returns 12 and כלשהי סיבה 1 — and that single hit, read in context, is not the pattern at all (it is ממשלה כלשהי followed by a separate סיבה). So the postposed order is unanimous where the corpus can be checked. The ־שהו series goes the other way and precedes.

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Those two families are also a register map, and an encyclopedia shows the written half of it plainly: on Hebrew Wikipedia (same query form and date) כלשהו returns about 5,400 articles against 176 for איזשהו, and כלשהי about 3,700 against 144 for איזושהי — the larger figures being floors rather than exact counts. In speech the balance runs the other way entirely. Read it the way you would read אנשים רבים against הרבה אנשים: write כלשהו in a report, say איזשהו to a friend.

The plural is worth a separate warning. כלשהם and כלשהן are ordinary formal Hebrew — 604 and 411 articles in the same search. Their ־שהו counterparts barely exist: איזשהם returns 3 and איזשהן 2. So in the plural you do not really have two families to choose between; you have כלשהם, or you rephrase.

Where these words come from, and why it matters

The Academy of the Hebrew Language's article מישהו, איזשהו ועוד — כינויים סתמיים בסיומת 'שהוא' (retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 18 June 2025) explains the shape. Rabbinic Hebrew had משהו meaning a little, a bit — "שלוש שעות חסר משהוא" — and the phrase כל שהוא, occasionally written as one word, for an unspecified small quantity: קרקע כל שהוא (Mishnah, Pe'ah 3:6). Only in modern Hebrew literature did these broaden from a small amount to anything at all, and the Academy attributes that broadening to the parallel European forms — Russian -нибудь and German irgend-, both of which attach to a question word exactly as ־שהו does.

Two consequences follow, and both are practical. First, משהו is a pronoun, not a determiner — it is a small amount of something, historically, and it never acquired a noun slot after it. Second, the Academy notes that formal and legal Hebrew avoids the ־שהו words and that editors routinely replace them: מתי שהוא becomes בזמן כלשהו, איך שהוא becomes בדרך כלשהי. That editorial habit is the register split, described from the inside.

English "any" is three different words

This is where the page earns its keep. English any covers three jobs that Hebrew hands to three unrelated constructions, and picking the wrong one produces a sentence that is not merely awkward but ungrammatical.

English any	Hebrew	Example
negative-polarity — "I didn't see any…"	שום · אף, with an obligatory negator	לא ראיתי אף אחד · אין שום סיכוי
free-choice — "any one at all will do"	כל bare noun (formal), or כל + a relative clause	אין כל צורך · כל מי שרוצה
interrogative — "have you got any…?"	nothing — a bare noun	יש שאלות?

Negative-polarity any needs a negator elsewhere in the clause. שום and אף do not negate anything by themselves; Hebrew is a negative-concord language and marks the negation twice. The words themselves are on negative determiners.

אין שום סיכוי שהוא יגיע בזמן.

ein shum sikúy shehú yagía bazmán

There isn't any chance of him getting there on time.

לא ראיתי אף אחד בכניסה, אולי הם כבר עלו.

lo ra'íti af ekhád baknisá, ulái hem kvar alú

I didn't see anybody at the entrance — maybe they've already gone up.

Free-choice any — pick any one, it doesn't matter which — is the reading that trips people, because it looks identical in English. In a formal register Hebrew uses כל plus a bare indefinite noun; in speech it uses כל plus a relative clause, or simply איזה.

אין כל צורך להקדים, הדלת תהיה פתוחה.

ein kol tsórekh lehakdím, hadélet tihyé ptukhá

There is no need whatsoever to come early — the door will be open. (formal)

כל מי שרוצה יכול להצטרף, פשוט תגידו לי מראש.

kol mi sherotsé yakhól lehitstaréf, pashút tagídu li merósh

Anyone who wants to can join — just tell me in advance. (to a group)

תבחר איזה שאתה רוצה, כולם באותו מחיר.

tivkhár éize she'atá rotsé, kulám be'otó mekhír

Take any one you like — they're all the same price. (to a man, informal)

Interrogative any is back to strategy one: nothing at all.

יש שאלות לפני שאנחנו מתחילים?

yesh she'elót lifnéi she'anákhnu matkhilím?

Are there any questions before we start?

נשאר לך כסף או שאני משלם?

nish'ár lekhá késef o she'aní meshalém?

Have you got any money left, or am I paying? (to a man)

Common Mistakes

1. Reaching for the definite article to translate "some". English some people has no article, but the learner's hand has already learned that Hebrew nouns "need" a ה, and an object slot pulls את in after it.

❌ ראיתי את אנשים בחוץ

Incorrect — 'some people' is an indefinite plural, so it takes no article and no את: ראיתי אנשים בחוץ. With את and the article it would be ראיתי את האנשים, 'I saw the people'.

✅ ראיתי אנשים בחוץ, אולי הם מחכים לפתיחה.

ra'íti anashím bakhúts, ulái hem mekhakím laptikhá

I saw some people outside — maybe they're waiting for it to open.

2. Using משהו or מישהו as a determiner. They are pronouns: משהו is something, מישהו is somebody, and neither has a noun slot after it. English something behaves the same way — nobody says *something book — but some looks close enough to משהו to override that.

❌ קניתי משהו ספרים בשוק

Incorrect — משהו is a pronoun, 'something', and cannot stand in front of a noun. Say קניתי כמה ספרים, or קניתי איזה ספר for one unspecified book.

✅ משהו טוב קרה לי היום, אני אספר לך אחר כך.

máshehu tov kará li hayóm, aní asapér lekhá akhár kakh

Something good happened to me today — I'll tell you later. (to a man — משהו standing alone, with an adjective after it, is exactly right)

3. Putting כלשהו in front of its noun. English word order says any problem, so the Hebrew word gets slotted into the English position — where, unlike most word-order slips, it has no reading at all.

❌ אם יש כלשהי בעיה, תתקשרו למוקד

Incorrect — כלשהו and its forms follow the noun: אם יש בעיה כלשהי, תתקשרו למוקד. The family that precedes is איזשהו / איזושהי: אם יש איזושהי בעיה.

✅ אם מתעוררת בעיה כלשהי, יש לפנות למוקד השירות.

im mit'oréret be'ayá kolshehí, yesh lifnót lemokéd hasherút

If any problem arises, contact the service desk. (formal — a printed instruction)

4. Using שום for free-choice "any" in a positive sentence. One English word covers both jobs, so the negative-polarity word gets used where the free-choice one belongs — and שום without a negator is not a Hebrew sentence.

❌ אתה יכול לבחור שום ספר מהמדף

Incorrect — שום needs a negator in the clause and means 'not any'. For free-choice 'any' use כל: אתה יכול לבחור כל ספר מהמדף, or in speech איזה ספר שאתה רוצה.

✅ אתה יכול לקחת כל ספר מהמדף הזה, הם כולם למסירה.

atá yakhól lakákhat kol séfer mehamadáf hazé, hem kulám limsirá

You can take any book off this shelf — they're all being given away. (to a man)

Key Takeaways

Hebrew has no determiner for "some" and none for "any". The default translation of both is nothing at all: יש חלב במקרר, קניתי לחם, אתה רוצה קפה?
The test: if some can be deleted from the English sentence without changing it, it is absent in Hebrew.
When the quantity matters, use the ordinary quantifiers — כמה for countables, קצת for mass.
When the referent is genuinely unidentified, two families: איזשהו / איזושהי before the noun (everyday), כלשהו / כלשהי / כלשהם / כלשהן after it (formal). The order is not optional — כלשהי בעיה returns zero hits against thirteen for בעיה כלשהי.
In the plural the choice collapses: כלשהם and כלשהן are normal formal Hebrew, while איזשהם and איזשהן are effectively nonexistent in writing.
English "any" is three words. Negative-polarity goes to שום / אף with an obligatory negator; free-choice goes to כל (formal אין כל צורך, spoken כל מי שרוצה); interrogative goes to a bare noun.
משהו and מישהו are pronouns, not determiners: משהו טוב קרה is fine, *משהו ספר is impossible.
The ־שהו words began in Rabbinic Hebrew meaning a little (משהו, כל שהוא) and only broadened to anything at all in modern literature, on the model of Russian -нибудь and German irgend-.

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