These both prefixes have a pretty clear meaning, but it seems that many students find them difficult to use.

Upon learning German, pretty soon one comes across the difference between wohin and woher.

1. Wohin gehst du? Ich gehe zur Bank/nach Hause.

2. Woher kommst du? Ich komme aus Deutschland/von der Bank.

3. Wo bist du? Ich bin in Berlin/zu Hause.

‘wo’ refers to a place, used without any prefix it means just where. The prefix ‘hin’ indicates a movement from the speaker’s place towards another place, e.g. the bank or one’s home. The prefix ‘her’ means the opposite, a movement towards the speaker.

This difference is learnt at an early stage (A1), and most of the students can use it properly. The same situation occurs with a sentence or the answer.

4. Zur Bank? Ja, ich gehe jetzt dahin. (Or often used in the spoken language, where the prefix is separated from the ‘da’):

5. Ja, da gehe ich jetzt hin.

‘da’ refers to a place as well, it just means ‘there’. But only ‘da’ means a place without any kind of movement:

6. Die Bank? Ja, die ist da (hinten/vorne).

When any kind of movement is involved, we need one of the both: hin or her:

7. Komm hierher!

Spoken it is often abbreviated to: Komm her, but never to *Komm hier, which is often used by students. It is incorrect because the indication of the movement is missing.

It seems again that due to the lack of this structure in other languages it seems hard for students to acquire it. This is true also for Chinese students even if their language has a very similar structure. In addition, there must be a difference in the process of acquisition between the wo-prefix structure and the da-prefix structure. I assume that many students didn’t learn anything about the similarities of the both structures.

Furthermore, hin and her can both be combined with many prepositions.

8. Kommen Sie doch herein/rein!

9. Gehen Sie doch schon hinein/rein!

10. Komm von dem Baum herunter/runter!

11. Dort hinauf/rauf!

12. Er hat das Geld hineingesteckt/reingesteckt.

13. Nehmt eure Bücher heraus/raus!

In the spoken language, more in the northern part of Germany, the difference between the two directions is often replaced by only one expression r + preposition.

In the full version, the use of hin and her shows very clear the location of the speaker in relationship to the addressee. In sentence 8, the speaker is already inside, while in 9 both are outside.