how do you say,what do you do for a living...

Question

In english there are questions that use the word do twice in a sentence like, what do you do for a living, what do you do to get away the heat? How would you express questions like this in spanish?

thanks in advance for any help you give.

Answer 1

tamara,
This was a really great question, thanks for asking it. I have never thought about this particular word order as needed in a translation. Thanks again, I learn as much from other peoples questions as I do from mine.

Answer 2

hmmm ... that makes better sense. Thank you

Answer 3

You are not just "using do twice", but using an auxiliary verb "do", and then a normal verb "do" (= to make)

what do you want?
What do you see?
What do you do?

The first "do" does not exist in Spanish, and it is not needed. The second one is normally "hacer".

Your sentences could be:

¿Qué haces para ganarte la vida?
¿Cómo te ganas la vida?
¿A qué te dedicas?
¿Qué trabajo tienes?
¿En qué trabajas?

For the second one I need a bit more context to give you the right translation.