Hin and her are two of the shortest words in German. They are also two of the most quietly devastating ones — because German uses them everywhere. As standalone words, glued onto verbs, fused with prepositions, hidden inside compound directions you use every single day. And most learners are operating on a single sentence that doesn't actually cover any of that.
The sentence was probably: hin means away from you, her means toward you. That's true. It's also incomplete enough to be useless the moment sentences get real.
The Core Logic: It's All About the Speaker
Hin and her are direction words, and the direction they describe is always relative to where the speaker is standing. Not where the subject of the sentence is. Not some neutral third point. The speaker.
Komm her.
Come here. (toward me)
Geh hin.
Go there. (away from me, toward that place)
Simple enough in isolation. The complication is that German applies this logic consistently across dozens of compound forms — and once you see the system, all of them make sense at once.
As Verb Prefixes
Hin and her are separable prefixes that attach to verbs and carry their directional logic with them. The verb tells you the action. Hin or her tells you the direction relative to the speaker.
Er kommt her.
He's coming over. (toward the speaker)
Sie geht hin.
She's going there. (away from the speaker)
Ich bringe es her.
I'll bring it here. (toward you)
Ich lege es hin.
I'll set it down. (away, onto a surface)
Common hin- verbs
hingehen — to go there
hinsetzen — to sit down
hinstellen — to place something somewhere
hinsehen / hinschauen — to look over there
hinzufügen — to add something
Common her- verbs
herkommen — to come from somewhere
herstellen — to produce / manufacture
herausfinden — to find out
hervorheben — to emphasize, highlight
Note
Verbs like herstellen and hervorheben have drifted far enough from their directional origins that forcing the "toward the speaker" logic onto them doesn't help. Learn those as fixed vocabulary.
Combined With Prepositions: Where It Gets Dense
Hin and her combine with directional prepositions to create compound direction words. Each pair has a distinct meaning depending on which one leads.
| Direction | Hin– (away from speaker) | Her– (toward speaker) |
|---|---|---|
| up | hinauf | herauf |
| down | hinunter | herunter |
| in | hinein | herein |
| out | hinaus | heraus |
| over / across | hinüber | herüber |
Er geht hinein.
He's going in. (away from me, into something)
Er kommt herein.
He's coming in. (toward me, into this space)
Geh hinunter.
Go downstairs. (away from where I am)
Komm herauf.
Come upstairs. (toward where I am)
The test every time: is the person getting closer to where you're standing, or further away? Her if closer. Hin if further.
The Colloquial Contractions (What You Actually Hear)
In spoken German, the her– compounds almost always lose the he– and contract to an r– form. This is not sloppy German — it is standard colloquial speech.
| Full form | Spoken form |
|---|---|
| herein | rein |
| heraus | raus |
| herüber | rüber |
| herunter | runter |
| herauf | rauf |
Komm rein!
Come in!
Geh raus!
Get out!
Kannst du das runterbringen?
Can you bring that downstairs?
Lad es einfach rauf.
Just upload it. (raufladen = to upload, colloquially)
This is the single biggest gap between textbook German and what you actually hear. If you only learned herein and heraus, you've been hearing rein and raus for months without connecting them. Now you can.
The hin– forms contract less often, though nein for hinein and naus for hinaus appear in very casual speech.
Wo, Wohin, Woher
German has three distinct question words for location and movement, and conflating them is a consistent learner error:
Wo bist du?
Where are you? (static location)
Wohin gehst du?
Where are you going? (movement away)
Woher kommst du?
Where are you from? / Where are you coming from? (origin)
In casual spoken German, wo frequently absorbs wohin — with the hin migrating to the end of the sentence. Both are correct; the split form is more colloquial.
Wo willst du hin?
Where do you want to go? (colloquial split)
Wo kommst du her?
Where are you coming from? (colloquial split)
The Perspective Problem
The trickiest real-world situation is describing someone else's movement when you're not physically present in the scene. The hin/her choice depends entirely on your position — not on the direction of movement as some abstract fact.
If a friend calls to say they're heading to the supermarket and you're at home: from your perspective they're moving away — Sie geht hin or Sie geht in den Supermarkt hinein.
If you're standing at the supermarket entrance watching someone walk in, they're moving toward you: Er kommt herein.
The practical shortcut: when in doubt in everyday speech, hin is the safer default for movement away from your current location, and the colloquial rein / raus / runter / rauf / rüber forms cover most of the her– cases in normal conversation.
Fixed Prefix Verbs vs. Directional Compounds
Not every German verb containing hin– or her– is about physical direction.
Ich stelle mich vor.
I introduce myself. (vorstellen — fixed prefix verb)
Ich stelle es hin.
I place it somewhere. (hinstellen — directional compound)
Vorstellen uses vor as a fixed prefix — it is not a directional hin/her compound. Hinstellen uses hin as a separable directional prefix. They look similar but follow different rules.
The tell: fixed prefix verbs like verstehen, vorstellen, bestehen never split in main clauses. Hin/her directional compounds always split.
Ich stelle es hin. ✓
Ich vorstelle mich. ✗
Ich stelle mich vor. ✓
Quick Recap
- Her = toward the speaker. Hin = away from the speaker. Always relative to where you are standing.
- Both attach to verbs and prepositions: hinein, heraus, hinauf, herunter, hinüber, herüber, etc.
- Her– compounds contract in spoken German: herein → rein, heraus → raus, herunter → runter, herauf → rauf, herüber → rüber.
- Wo = static location. Wohin = where to. Woher = where from. In casual speech, hin and her split to the end: "Wo willst du hin?"
- The perspective anchor is always the speaker — not the subject, not an abstract narrative direction.
- Directional hin/her compounds always split. Fixed prefix verbs (vorstellen, verstehen) never do.