hiervshimWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hier is a adverb, him is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hier” is an adverb and “him” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#68
“hier” frequency rank
#15,118
“him” frequency rank
15186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hier him
Definition an diesem Ort Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Objektform: ihm, ihn

Where the eye mixes hier and him

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hier
3 ch
him

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hier is [hiːɐ̯] while him is [hɪm]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hier is recorded at frequency rank #68, classified as anadv, pronounced [hiːɐ̯]. him is at rank #15,118, tagged as apron, pronounced [hɪm].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 15186, this pair ranks #1,945,750 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hier vs him

Shared letters: hi. Private to "hier": er. Private to "him": m.

"hier" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "him" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hierheir · hhier · hierr · hire · iher

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hier" and "him" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hier" is an adverb and "him" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hier" or "him"?
"hier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #68 in our German list, against #15,118 for "him". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list