What do you do in your life?

In the first lessons of Spanish textbooks, usually you can find a list with some professions, both in masculine or feminine.

- Soy camarero(a).
- Soy médico(a).
- Soy arquitecto(a).
- Soy abogado(a).
- Etc.

And then when the teacher asks your profession, sometimes you can't see it there on the list or it's something you can't explain with just a word, even with the most obvious professions.Let's see some common answers from real Spanish speakers:

- Estoy en una tienda de música en el centro, de dependiente.
- Trabajo en el Corte Inglés de repartidor, llevando portes, haciendo mudanzas también y eso.
- Yo trabajo en mi casa, por internet. Diseño páginas web, hago blogs, en fin, de todo un poco.

Question: do you see something in common in these 3 explanations?

Sorry, It could be hard. The answer is all 3 explanations give longer or shorter information about what they do in their jobs. They explain the kind of work they do a little bit. It's not usual to say just the adjective that describes your profession: soy teleoperador.

For example, when you work at a music store, selling instruments, scores and stuff, it's an occupation of course, but nobody goes to college to study that. There's no official studies at the university to become a salesman at a music store, a shoe store, a clothes store, etc.

So, in these cases it sounds kind of weird to say

- Soy dependiente en una tienda de música.

But rather:

- Trabajo en una tienda de música, de dependiente. (you say the place and then the job, adjective or explanation)

When isn't it weird? When it's some profession well known, well defined and generally determined by our universal organization of society: cop, firefighter, doctor, writer, nurse, teacher, language teacher, lawyer, etc. The weird thing in these cases would be the opposite, in fact:

- I put out fires, I work with a hosepipe and a truck with big escalators.
- I put people in jail and I fine them too.

They sound like riddles to me, instead of just saying cop and firefighter. Everybody knows, in China and Hawai what a cop is supposed to do at work and a firefighter. The goal is the person gets an idea of what we do in our lives. Sometimes the adjective is the most effective description, sometimes the literal description of what we do.

What's the right question?.-

1. ¿A qué te dedicas?
2. ¿En qué trabajas?
3. ¿Dónde trabajas?
4. ¿Qué haces?

If you're not sure whether the other person works or not, it's better not to use 2nd and 3rd options. The 4th might be confusing at times, because it can also mean: what are you doing? So I'd choose the 1st option, since it includes any kind of activity you might do in your life: studies, work, travelling, music, work from home and other things that some people might not consider jobs like playing chess or testing videogames.

P.S: unfortunately, and as I mentioned in another entry, I can't put the whole reality in a blog, which means that you can find one person who tells you: soy teleoperador. But, generally speaking, we teachers are here to tell you what 98% of the people say.

By the way, you reader of this blog, ¿a qué te dedicas?