מ־ / מן: From, Out Of, Than | Hebrew Grammar

מ־ does three jobs that English keeps apart. It marks a source (from), it forms the comparative (than), and it marks a part of a whole (one of them). It is also the one of the four one-letter prepositions that does not behave like the other three, and that difference causes more beginner spelling errors than anything else in the group.

Source and origin

The basic sense: where something came from — a place you left, a country you are from, a person a letter arrived from.

באתי מהבית, לא מהמשרד.

báti mehabáyit, lo mehamisrád

I've come from home, not from the office.

היא מרוסיה, אבל גדלה כאן.

hi merúsya, avál gadlá kan

She's from Russia, but she grew up here.

קיבלתי מכתב מדנה אחרי שנתיים.

kibálti mikhtáv midána akharéi shnatáyim

I got a letter from Dana after two years.

יצאנו מהמסעדה בעשר ואף אחד לא רצה ללכת הביתה.

yatsánu mehamis'adá be'éser ve'áf ekhád lo ratsá lalékhet habáyta

We left the restaurant at ten and nobody wanted to go home.

The article stays visible

Traditional grammar groups four one-letter prepositions as בכל״ם — ב, כ, ל, מ — and three of them absorb the definite article's ה, keeping only its vowel. מ־ does not. "From the house" is מהבית, ה and all.

Preposition + the article	Written	Reads
ב + הבית	בבית — the ה is gone	babáyit
ל + הבית	לבית — the ה is gone	labáyit
כ + הבית	כבית — the ה is gone	kabáyit
מ + הבית	מהבית — the ה stays	mehabáyit

This is good news, not bad: with מ־, what you hear is what you write. The three fusing letters are handled on article fusion.

What happens where the נ went

מ־ is the short form of a whole word, מן, and knowing that explains the vowel you hear. Hebrew Wiktionary's מן entry states the rule outright: when מן joins the following word, the נ drops and a strong dagesh takes its place in the next letter — so מן + בית gives מִבַּיִת, with the ב doubled. But a guttural letter cannot take a dagesh, and there the mem takes a tsere instead.

Pieces	Result	Reads	What happened
מן + בַּיִת	מִבַּיִת	mibáyit	the נ became a dagesh in the ב
מן + דָּנָה	מִדָּנָה	midána	the same, in the ד
מן + עִיר	מֵעִיר	me'ír	ע takes no dagesh, so the mem lengthens
מן + רוּסְיָה	מֵרוּסְיָה	merúsya	ר behaves the same way
מן + הַבַּיִת	מֵהַבַּיִת	mehabáyit	ה is a guttural too — hence me-, not mi-

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The last row is the payoff. Learners memorise mehabáyit as an odd exception and then say *mihabáyit the moment they stop concentrating. It is not an exception at all: the article begins with ה, a guttural, so the mem always comes out me- in front of a definite noun. One rule, and every definite phrase in the language falls out of it.

Than: the comparative

Hebrew has no separate word for than. Comparison is built with יותר ("more") and the thing compared against arrives on מ־.

הוא גבוה ממני בחצי ראש.

hu gavóa miméni bakhatsí rosh

He's half a head taller than me.

הקפה כאן טוב יותר מזה שבמשרד.

hakafé kan tov yotér mizé shebamisrád

The coffee here is better than the stuff at the office.

זה יצא יקר יותר ממה שחשבנו.

ze yatsá yakár yotér mimá shekhashávnu

It came out more expensive than we thought.

Now the part that catches English speakers. English says taller than me, with a free pronoun after the word than. Hebrew cannot do that, because מ־ is a prefix and a prefix has nothing to attach to when the next word is a pronoun. The pronoun has to become a suffix: "than me" is ממני, one word. *גדול מן אני and *גדול מ אני are not options in any register. The construction itself — יותר, פחות, and the word order — is on the comparative.

The partitive: one of them

"One of the boys", "some of the people", "none of us" — the of here is not possession, and Hebrew marks it with מ־, not with של.

אחד מהם שכח את הדרכון בבית.

ekhád mehém shakhákh et hadarkón babáyit

One of them left his passport at home.

חלק מהאנשים כבר הלכו לפני הסוף.

khélek meha'anashím kvar halkhú lifnéi hasóf

Some of the people had already left before the end.

אף אחד מאיתנו לא ידע מה לעשות.

af ekhád me'itánu lo yadá ma la'asót

None of us knew what to do.

The suffixed forms, and one surprise in them

Person	Form	Reads
from me	מִמֶּנִּי	miméni
from you (m. sg.)	מִמְּךָ	mimkhá
from you (f. sg.)	מִמֵּךְ	mimékh
from him	מִמֶּנּוּ	miménu
from her	מִמֶּנָּה	miména
from us	מֵאִיתָּנוּ	me'itánu
from them (m.)	מֵהֶם	mehém

Look at the bottom three rows. The plurals are not built on the singular stem at all. מהם is transparently מ־ stacked on הם, and Pealim's everyday "from us" is מאיתנו — visibly מ־ on איתנו "with us", a form that belongs to a different preposition entirely (see עם). The מִמֶּנ־ stem that carries the whole singular simply stops at the plural.

There is a second oddity worth knowing exists before you meet it: מִמֶּנּוּ is glossed above as "from him", and in classical and normative Hebrew the identical form also means "from us" — which is exactly why the everyday מאיתנו exists. Both the paradigm and that ambiguity are worked through on ממני, ממך, ממנו.

Verbs that take מ־

A handful of common verbs govern מ־ where English gives a bare object. As always, the letter is part of the word.

הכלב נהנה מהטיול יותר מכולנו.

hakélev nehené mehatiyúl yotér mikulánu

The dog enjoyed the walk more than any of us. (both jobs of מ־ in one sentence — government, then comparison)

אני מתעלמת מההודעות שלו כבר שבוע.

aní mit'alémet mehahoda'ót sheló kvar shavúa

I've been ignoring his messages for a week. (f. speaker)

היא נמנעת מסוכר כבר חצי שנה.

hi nimná'at misukár kvar khatsí shaná

She's been avoiding sugar for six months.

The list is collected on verbs that take מ־.

מן as a free word

Pealim heads the dictionary entry מִן, with מ־ as the attached form — the two are one preposition, not two. In modern Hebrew the attached form is the productive one, and the free word survives in (formal) writing and in a small set of frozen phrases that everybody uses without thinking of them as formal at all: מן הסתם "presumably", יוצא מן הכלל "outstanding, exceptional", מן הראוי "it would be proper to" (formal).

מן הסתם הוא שכח, זה קורה לו כל הזמן.

min hastám hu shakhákh, ze koré lo kol hazmán

He'll have forgotten, presumably — it happens to him constantly.

האוכל שם יוצא מן הכלל, תזמין מראש.

ha'ókhel sham yotsé min haklál, tazmín merósh

The food there is outstanding — book ahead. (to a man)

Which of the two to reach for, and where the choice actually matters, is on מ־ or מן.

Common Mistakes

1. Leaving the pronoun free after מ־. English than me has two words, and the habit transfers whole.

❌ הוא יותר גבוה מאני

Incorrect — the pronoun becomes a suffix: הוא יותר גבוה ממני. There is no spaced or free-standing version.

✅ אחותי הקטנה כבר גבוהה ממני בראש.

akhotí haktaná kvar gvohá miméni berósh

My little sister is already a head taller than me.

2. Writing מ־ as a separate word. It is a letter, not a word: no space, no hyphen.

❌ אני מ תל אביב

Incorrect as a spelling — מ־ is a prefix and is written solid against the next word: אני מתל אביב.

✅ אני מתל אביב אבל אני גר בחיפה כבר עשר שנים.

aní mitél avív avál aní gar bekhéifa kvar éser shaním

I'm from Tel Aviv but I've been living in Haifa for ten years. (m. speaker)

3. Giving התעלם a direct object. English "ignore someone" has none, so nothing signals that Hebrew needs מ־.

❌ התעלמתי אותו

Incorrect — התעלם takes מ־: התעלמתי ממנו. את would mark a direct object, and this verb has none.

✅ התעלמתי ממנו כל הערב והוא לא שם לב בכלל.

hit'alámti miménu kol ha'érev vehú lo sam lev bikhlál

I ignored him all evening and he didn't notice at all.

4. Translating partitive of as של. English uses one word for possession and for parts; Hebrew uses two different ones.

❌ אחד שלהם

Incorrect as 'one of them' — a part of a group takes מ־: אחד מהם. של marks possession, so אחד שלהם would be 'one belonging to them'.

✅ אחד מהחברים שלי עובד שם, אני אשאל אותו.

ekhád mehakhaverím shelí ovéd sham, aní esh'ál otó

One of my friends works there — I'll ask him. (both words in one phrase: מ־ for the part, של for the possession)

Key Takeaways

מ־ / מן does three jobs: source (מהבית), comparison (גדול ממני) and partitive (אחד מהם).
It does not absorb the definite article. מהבית, מהעיר, מהעבודה all keep a visible ה — unlike בבית, לבית, כבית. Of the four בכל״ם letters, only three fuse.
מן's נ turns into a dagesh in the next letter (מִבַּיִת), and where that letter is a guttural and cannot take one, the mem takes tsere instead (מֵעִיר). Since the article's ה is a guttural, every definite noun gives me-, never mi-.
Hebrew has no word for than — comparison just uses מ־, and the pronoun must be a suffix: ממני, never *מ אני.
The suffixed plurals abandon the singular stem: ממני, ממך, ממנו, ממנה, but then מאיתנו and מהם.
Everyday verbs governing מ־ include נהנה מ־, התעלם מ־, נמנע מ־.
Free-standing מן is the same preposition in (formal) dress, plus frozen phrases — מן הסתם, יוצא מן הכלל, מן הראוי.

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