In German you do say “I am a farmer/doctor/programmer/manager/…” when talking about yourself, but the same is done in English too.
When asking someone about their job, you’d say “Was arbeitest du?” (“What do you do for work?”) or if you want to have a more specific answer “Wo arbeitest du?” (“Where do you work?”).
You wouldn’t ask “Was bist du?” (“What are you?”), since that question is way to open-ended and imprecise and German generally doesn’t do that level of imprecision.
The only circumstance where “Was bist du?” would work for asking for someone’s job is when you are already discussing everyone’s job roles. So e.g. you are new to the team and everyone’s telling you about their roles and you ask the next person about their role.
Oh that’s horrible to hear.
It really does matter how and what we say, language is such an important part of shaping our human experience.
Tbh, I think they are exaggerating.
In German you do say “I am a farmer/doctor/programmer/manager/…” when talking about yourself, but the same is done in English too.
When asking someone about their job, you’d say “Was arbeitest du?” (“What do you do for work?”) or if you want to have a more specific answer “Wo arbeitest du?” (“Where do you work?”).
You wouldn’t ask “Was bist du?” (“What are you?”), since that question is way to open-ended and imprecise and German generally doesn’t do that level of imprecision.
The only circumstance where “Was bist du?” would work for asking for someone’s job is when you are already discussing everyone’s job roles. So e.g. you are new to the team and everyone’s telling you about their roles and you ask the next person about their role.
Yep, korrekt.