The Directional Adverbs: hin and her
In German, direction is often described relative to the speaker's perspective. To express motion to or from a place, you will frequently use two highly common directional adverbs: hin and her.
- hin indicates motion away from the speaker (towards a destination).
- her indicates motion towards the speaker.
Into and Out of (ein and aus)
You can combine hin and her with prepositional prefixes to describe exactly how someone is moving relative to you. For example, add ein (in) or aus (out).
If you are inside a room and want someone to enter, they are coming towards you. You use herein (in towards speaker). If you are outside and telling someone to go inside, they are moving away from you. You use hinein (in away from speaker).
Similarly, if you are outside and want someone to exit a house, they are coming towards you (heraus). If you are inside telling them to go outside, they are moving away (hinaus).
Up and Down (auf and unter)
The exact same logic applies to vertical movement. Depending on your location, you might tell someone to come down a floor to you (herunter) or go up the stairs away from you (hinauf).
To Here and To There (hierher and dorthin)
When talking about destinations with the adverbs hier (here) and dort (there), German strictly separates static location from motion. If there is movement to a place, you must combine these words with hin and her.
- hierher: to this place (motion towards "here")
- dorthin: to that place (motion towards "there")
