Naah, instead depending on the minority they’ll be further reduced to their skin colour, religion, genitals or sth. else. For the majority these things usually are just indicators for potential career chances and likelihood of being harassed.
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.
In german this is even worse because people don’t ask what you do, but what you are. It reduces people’s identity to their job even more.
Fun fact, if you’re a visible minority people will ask you the same question in English speaking countries!
Is the answer to that not “uhhhh… human?”
I would answer “I am Tom.”
Then I’d laugh, because my name isn’t Tom. I have just played an epic prank!!!
Sounds like they’ve figured out how not to be reduced to their jobs!
Naah, instead depending on the minority they’ll be further reduced to their skin colour, religion, genitals or sth. else. For the majority these things usually are just indicators for potential career chances and likelihood of being harassed.
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.