why can i refer to myself as "soy pintor" when my job could change tomorrow?
a question raised whilst talking with a friend
8 Answers
If you want to focus on what your current job is & not your profession, & you expect your job to change anytime soon, you can say "(Ahora/Hoy) trabajo de pintor" which simply translates as "I work as a painter right now."
Because you're talking about something that describes who you are.
your use of the word "whilst" is an abomination.
Whee, no mincing of words here! If memory serves, the last time you expressed your (vehement) objection to the use of "whilst", you asserted that it had died out of normal usage around 1800 and, even then, was only used with comic intent.
As it happened, the very next day, I encountered a use of "whilst" in a novel by (I believe) David Baldacci in which the author (as narrator, not direct quotation) used "whilst". {not was this an attempt at humor]).
The O E D gives as the its most recent citation, "1918 Act 8 & 9 Geo. V c. 17 Sched. i. ii, Such revocation shall not be made whilst the Bill..is pending in either House." Rather later than 1800 and apparently without humorous intent.
If you mean to assert that you never use "whilst" and (perhaps) that no one of your acquaintance does either) that's a simple statement of fact/language preference. If, on the other hand, you wish to assert that nobody uses this word or that there is no precedent in English for its use, you are on much thinner ice.
That really depends if you are really a painter or not, in English or in Spanish. There is a difference between an artist who is a painter to the core of their being and someone who just happens to be painting.
Deanski has the right answer. If is your profession you need to use "ser". If you are doing something for a what you hope will be a short period of time, you can use "estar de" o "trabajar de": Soy actriz, pero estoy de camarera en un restaurante español de Los Angeles, hasta que me un director famoso me descubra.
I always considered the use of "soy" for describing your profession or religion as a convention of the way the world worked when the language was born.
Long ago, people were painters, or bakers or fencemakers their whole lives, mostly because their father and their father's father before them and their father's father's father all had the same job.
Same goes for religion.
We change jobs, careers and religions now, but the convention of using "soy" still holds.
because I could work as a carpenter tomorrow, but I paint houses (or pictures) today.
You can be a butcher and a taxidriver in night shifts.
Or you could have a degree in education as teacher and never teach because you paint. So you are a teacher, but you work as a painter.
Soy pintor - I am a painter. That is what you would say in English. If you mean Ser vs. Estar, I get the impression that Ser is used for personal traits. Since you are a painter, that would be a use of Ser.
