What is the difference between hinhören and herhören? Is “herhören” more like “listen here”, as in the speaker is telling people to listen to them, whereas “hinhören” is like, the person making the statement is describing the act of listening to someone or something else other than the person speaking?
I found some explanations here.
herhören es parecido a zuhören pero lo puede decir solo la persona que quiere ser escuchada
Hör her! Wenn du das noch einmal machst… = Escúcha! Si vuelves a hacerlo otra vez…
hinhören es escuchar con intención y concentrándose
Wenn du genau hinhörst, kannst du die Grillen hören = Si escuchas muy bien, puedes oír los grillos.
For those you aren’t learning Spanish:
herhören is like zuhören but it is only spoken by the person who wants to be heard.
hinhören is to listen with focus and concentration.
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Das macht sentido, vielen gracias!
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“hin” means away from the speaker.
“her” means towards the speaker.
Together with “hören”, it denotes the direction of attention.
So if you say “Hör genau hin!”, and point to the TV or at someone who is speaking, you direct the attention of the one receiving the command to the TV or the speaker.
If you say “Hör mal her!”, or “Alle mal herhören!”, you are the one who wants their attention, because you have important things to say.
“Herhören” is, because of the limited possibilities, mostly only used as a command.
On the other hand, everyone can “hinhören”, and it means just “to listen (closely)”, because you don’t listen to yourself, i.e. your attention is always directed away from you.
And even if you listen to your own body, you can say “hinhören”, because is this context your conscious mind that does the listening is separate from the physical body thats making interesting noises, or even from the unconscious where your emotions are, if that’s what you’re trying to listen to.
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