"Wollen wir uns die Oper zusammen ___?"
a) hören
b) anhören
From this dictionary, anhören is used for concerts, while hören is used for singers. So, does both work here, or only "anhören"?
Because of "uns" in the test sentence, only "anhören" is possible. Even if one might say
"Wollen wir zusammen die Oper hören?",
only anhören works with this reflexive construction:
"Wollen wir uns die Oper anhören?"
And as others have noted, an opera is more than just an acoustic experience, so I would rather say ansehen than anhören (unless of course one is referring to a CD or radio transmission).
As a more general rule you can think of "hören" as "to hear" and "(sich) anhören" as "to listen to". The only exception is for uncountable, undefined acoustic sources.
Ich höre gerne Radio, Hörspiele...
"Anhören" wouldn't work in that case. But as soon as you are talking about one piece in particular, "anhören" is better.
Ich höre mir das Hörspiel an.
Ich höre das Hörspiel.
This isn't wrong but it sounds a bit odd to me. IN questions though either version is acceptable.
Hast du das Hörspiel schon gehört?
Hast du dir das Hörspiel schon angehört?
I'm no fan or expert of operas, so the term might indeed be anhören
or hören
, but in casual language one says:
Wollen wir die Oper zusammen sehen?
or
Wollen wir zusammen in die Oper gehen?
In casual language, one would only use hören
or anhören
if referring to mere auditive playbacks. In that case, both are possible with anhören
being prefered due to the concrete nature of the question (in opposition to hören
being prefered in general contexts).