For a method to operate a hearing device, a signal is recorded by at least one of several source units (S1, . . . , Sn). Furthermore, at least one of the recorded signals is classified into one or several predefined sound classes, characteristics of the source unit (S1, . . . , Sn), which records the signal, being taken into account during the classification. Finally, a hearing program is selected in the hearing device according to the classification result.