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 member of the four one-letter prepositions that does not behave like the other three, and that difference creates a predictable beginner spelling trap.
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 resh patterns with the gutturals here; before either, 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- |
Than: the comparative
Basic comparison needs no separate word for than. It is built with יותר ("more"), and the thing compared against arrives on מ־. Longer and more formal comparisons can also use מאשר; that alternative belongs on the comparative.
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. In the מ־ construction, Hebrew cannot do that, because 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, מאשר 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 plural-side forms represented by the last two rows. They are not built on the singular stem at all. מהם is transparently מ־ stacked on הם, and Pealim lists מאיתנו for "from us" alongside ממנו — visibly מ־ on איתנו "with us", a form that belongs to a different preposition entirely (see עם). The מִמֶּנ־ stem that carries the singular forms does not continue through the plural paradigm.
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". Everyday מאיתנו keeps the two meanings visibly distinct. 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 מן אני
Incorrect — in a comparison with מ־ / מן, the pronoun becomes a suffix: הוא יותר גבוה ממני. There is no free-standing מן אני 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
one of them
Incorrect with this meaning — a part of a group takes מ־: אחד מהם. של marks possession, so אחד שלהם means '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 before a guttural or resh, which cannot take one here, the mem takes tsere instead (מֵעִיר, מֵרוּסְיָה). Since the article's ה is a guttural, a noun marked with that article gives me-, never mi-.
- Basic comparison uses מ־ for than, and its pronoun must be a suffix: ממני, never *מן אני. Longer or more formal comparisons may also use מאשר.
- 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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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- ממני, ממך, ממנו: מ־ InflectedB1 — Learn the three stems of inflected מ־ for source and comparison, including why modern Hebrew uses מאיתנו for 'from us.'
- מ־ or מן?B2 — מ־ is the modern default and מן is the free-standing survivor — but it has not survived everywhere equally. Measured against a written corpus, מן has withdrawn almost entirely to one position, in front of the definite article, and even there it is the minority spelling. The error to watch for is not English transfer: it is hypercorrection.
- Comparatives: יותר … מ־A2 — Hebrew has no -er suffix and no word for than. Comparison is built from two free pieces — יותר (or פחות) beside the adjective, and מ־ glued to whatever you are comparing against — and the second piece is where English speakers come unstuck, because מ־ is a prefix and a prefix cannot stand in front of a pronoun.
- Verbs Governed by מ־: פחד מ, נהנה מ, התעלם מB1 — Learn common Hebrew verbs whose source, cause, avoided object, or person asked is introduced by מ־ rather than by a direct object.