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The verb haber has always confused me in its infinitive form. So in this construct of haber cuéntame, I see it is translated as "so, tell me".

I have just memorized that, but it makes no sense to me. I would expect así, cuéntame or así pues, cuéntame. Can someone break this down and project this to other sayings that use haber in this way?

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It is not "haber, cuéntame", but "a ver, cuéntame". The meaning of a ver is

  1. expr. U. para pedir algo que se quiere reconocer o ver.

i.e., it is used to ask to be shown or told something. It is roughly equivalent to "let's see/hear it" or "let me see/hear it" or "so", depending on the context.

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    The confusion is totally understandable, even for some native speakers with bad spelling, as "haber" and "a ver" are homophones.
    – user29577
    Aug 1, 2021 at 15:13
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    It's really hard to make that mistake when speaking
    – user29577
    Aug 1, 2021 at 17:47
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    It feels to me as an analog error to English speakers who write should of instead of should have. It doesn't make sense, but people write it anyway.
    – Martin Argerami
    Aug 2, 2021 at 20:40
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    Or could have been speech to text which just writes what it bears and often doesn't make sense
    – Midavalo
    Aug 3, 2021 at 13:21
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    It's most definitely a mistake made by the writer. As a Spanish native speaker, I know more people that I'd like to know who don't understand the difference between "haber", "a ver", and "aber" (which doesn't exist but anyway). It's also common when writing "ahí", "hay" and "ay".
    – alezvic
    Aug 3, 2021 at 13:27

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