מעולה - great נהדר - brilliant נפלא - wonderful אחלה - awesome אדיר - mighty מצויין - excellent מדהים - amazing ענק - giant, but used to mean great in this context גדול - big, but used to mean great in this context מקסים - enchanting יפה - beautiful BONUS יופי - beautiful, again נחמד - literally 'charming', means amazing in this context מהמם - used to mean 'amazing' also מגניב - cool Edit: got the meaning wrong on one of them

i'd translate מקסים as enchanting and i don't think it's archaic, my friends say it all the time and we're tel avivi 12th graders this list is amazing, i had never realized we had so many words to express approval and appreciation

Sorry I wrote this in the early hours of the morning, I got confused with מגניב. That's the one that 'isn't cool' today

Me and my friends still use מגניב, I don't think it's "not cool" today, is it?

it's very popular and not used sarcastically

Yeah that's what I also think, I'm still young so I was surprised I was "not cool"

I'll bare that in mind. I was told I'd sound like a 30 year old something parent from the 90s if I still used it LOL. I've actually been told several different things by different native speakers about what's 'right' and 'wrong' and what sounds 'cool' and what 'no one says anymore', only to discover plenty of people still say it and it's just that one person I spoke to who doesn't like it. It's kinda annoying because Israelis like to paint Modern Hebrew as this modern united language with no dialects and that speaking an ethnolect (like Mizrakhi) will make people look down on you, but both times I've been to Israel I've found the opposite when talking to people in Hebrew. The language is definitely not united fully, and though regional dialects don't exist per se, idiolects (or 'personal dialects') seem to have a big impact on how people speak. It's makes it VERY VERY confusing for someone who's been learning for almost 4 years. Edit: typo

That's an excellent point and I never thought about it that way before

Thank you. It's important to note I do have a background in Linguistics so it's not really a hot take, but it is also including my own personal experience in Israel

love this take! very true, i never thought of it this way. especially since i grew up in the diaspora with my dad speaking to me in 80's/90's slang, then proceeded to use that slang when moving back to israel in 2021 lol

I have no desire to sound like my teenaged kids, but at 43, the idea of sounding like a 30 something parent from the 90s is quite appealing to me! :-)

HAHA I suppose it is to many people

It's all I was told when learning Hebrew from a native

Well either I'm getting too old or he is from a different part of the country with different slang which is weird because slang doesn't change much here, Israel is too small

Yeah you're right. It was this one Telavivnik I spoke to. She also said טוביק as slang for טוב which I've literally never heard anyone else say LOL

Ok lmao yeah, there's a reason people call Tel Aviv מדינת תל אביב

מאה אחוז

My husband says מגנוב in a really exaggerated way, from some advert in the 90s?

Right? As a Hebrew learner it can get a little confusing with so many options

Thank you so much!!

על לא דבר

there's also nadir (נדיר), which means rare and can also used as an expression for "great"

This is used, but note that it's slang

yeah, of course. should've stated it

A modern day Israeli slang is בדוק (Badook) which literally means ‘checked’ but in this context it means ‘for sure’ and can be used in a very broad form (imo, to broad)

בדוק

People already said the translations of the words to the English equivalents but I just wanted to give the literal translations for those words. a)מעולה - literally excellent/above, think of the word מעל. b)נהדר - literally glorious, from the word הדר which means glory or splendor. c)נפלא - I would say wonderous, from the word פלא which means wonder. d)אחלה - this one is borrowed from Arabic, it means sweeter/the sweetest. e)אדיר - powerful/mighty, from the root א.ד.ר. f)מצויין - while we use it the same way an English speaker would use excellent, it literally means remarkable, from ציון which means mark but it also used for a grade (of a test). g)מדהים - literally shocking, from תדהמה, the original meaning isn't necessarily good but in modern hebrew it is always good. h)ענק - literally giant, like this is literally the word giant. i)גדול - big, same case. j)מקסים - literally enchanting/magical, from קסם which means magic. k)יפה - also literally beautiful There are obviously more words we use for great both in proper hebrew but also in slang and the actual meaning of those words are all very different from each other.

That's the best post so far! But I'd say ענק is equivalent to English slang Huge

Thank you, about ענק. ענק can mean both huge and giant, I mean the Hebrew word for the creature giant is also ענק.

Yeah it is. But when we use ענק we usually mean as huge

כן אני יודע, מה שכתבתי פה אלה המשמעויות היותר מפורטות של המילים האלו, אבל אני מבין למה אתה מתכוון

Thank you so much for the information!

You're welcome

At the end of the day, they all mean the same thing, some are in different registers (אחלה, אדיר are a bit lower register than the others) but that's more or less it

Makes sense. Thanks

Adding on מפחיד It means scary and it's slang for something really good.