Jezelf voorstellen in het Nederlands voor beginners

What does “van beroep” mean in Dutch?

When Dutch speakers ask about your job, they often say wat doe je van beroep? — literally “what do you do by profession?” In this set phrase the preposition is van, not als, even though als (as) appears in the answer: ik werk als leraar (“I work as a teacher”). A more casual alternative is wat doe je voor werk? (“what do you do for work?”). Locking the idiom as van beroep heads off a common A1 mix-up.

The clip drills the exchange twice: the instructor asks wat doe je van beroep?, then shows both answer options side by side — ik ben leraar (“I am a teacher”) and ik werk als leraar (“I work as a teacher”). Both are correct; your choice. The confusion for learners is that als is visible in the answer, so they reach for it in the question too — but inside this idiom it’s van beroep (the casual wat doe je voor werk? works as well). You can also use van beroep as a noun-phrase modifier: hij is schilder van beroep — “he’s a painter by trade.”