What’s your job? 

What do you do in life?

How do you make money?

How do afford to live in … ? 

How do you pay the bills? 

Hold up, hold up! 

While these sentences are grammatically correct, pragmatically speaking, they can be seen as nosy or rude. 

I’m going to teach you better ways to ask this question, which are pragmatically correct.

Hi Advanced English learners! Mary Daphne here and today we’re talking about how to ask someone about their job. 

As with most things in English, we have several ways of asking that question. You could say:

What line of work are you in?  What line of work are you in?

What do you do for a living? What do you do for a living?

How do you make a living?  How do you make a living? 

These questions are a bit more formal and can be used when you don’t know the person very well or if you are in a professional context.

If you’re speaking to someone close in age, more like a peer or someone you think you’ll becoming friends with you can ask this question the following ways.

So, what do you do? What do you do? Whadduyudu. Kinda fun to say, right? 

With this it’s implied that you’re talking about work. The more complete version of this would be “So, what do you do for a living” but asked in the short way “So, what do you do?” is completely fine.

Asking, so what do you do for fun is about the person’s hobbies and interests. So, it’s that not about work.

You might also say: 

How do you spend your days? How do you spend your days?

What are you working on at the moment? Or you just say, what are you working on?

You might have heard the term “Side-hustle.” A side-hustle is a passion project that can potentially turn into an income-stream or something more full-time. A side-hustle is something you work on, on the side, in addition to your main job. So this could be something like a freelance gig, starting a YouTube channel, creating crafts or handmade goods and selling them online like an Etsy shop. A lot of entrepreneurs start their companies as side-hustles. They pour their heart and soul into these passion projects and make their living with their job. If the side-hustle is successful it can become something more full-time.

So how do you ask someone about a side-hustle? You can say:

Do you have a side-hustle?

What’s your side hustle?

Are you working on any passion-projects right now?

Working on anything exciting at the moment?

There you have it, Advanced English learners. As you can see, there are quite a few ways to ask someone what they do for their job and for their side-hustle.

The next time you want to know someone’s job, you’ll have the right way to ask that without seeming pushy, rude or nosy.

Thanks for watching and remember to subscribe for more Advanced English lessons to improve your fluency, confidence, and clarity in English!

See you in the next lesson!

Bye for now 😊 

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:

Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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