Let me listen to you sing

[joham]

I've read the sentence 'Let me hear you play/sing' in different dictionaries. But do native speakers also say 'Let me listen to you play/sing' ?

Thank you in advance.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've read the sentence 'Let me hear you play/sing' in different dictionaries. But do native speakers also say 'Let me listen to you play/sing' ?

Thank you in advance.

Yes, though it's not as common as "hear".

 

[J&K Tutoring]

This is a very interesting question! I can't think of a general rule for the use of listen vs. hear. Agree with the previous post that we say ,"Let me hear you..." more often in the situation cited.

In thinking about it more, it seems we will use the word hear to describe the more general activity of experiencing live music, but we might switch to listen if we want to take a more critical, analyzing approach- say as a music critic or teacher, and we can apply the same to language teaching:

"Let me hear you describe..." to guage a student's progress in grammar.
"Let me listen as you say..." if we want to judge the pronunciation.

What do others think?

 

[5jj]

I think you are probably right for the rare occasions when people actually use 'listen'. However, I feel that even people who want to take a more critical approach are still likely to use 'hear'.

I am suggesting that 'listen' applies only to the critical approach, but 'hear' covers the whole range.