Learn Spanish (Spain): ¿A qué te dedicas? - What do you do for a living?

While you can absolutely ask ¿En qué trabajas? (What do you work in?), native speakers very often use the verb dedicarse to ask about someone's profession. It literally translates to 'To what do you dedicate yourself?'

Why does the sentence start with A?

In Spanish, you cannot put a preposition like 'to' or 'at' at the end of a sentence like we often do in English. Because the phrase is dedicarse a (to dedicate to), the a (to) must go right before the question word: ¿A qué...? (To what...?).

What does the word te do in this sentence?

Te means 'yourself.' This is a reflexive verb, which means the person doing the action is also receiving it. When you say te dedicas, you are literally saying 'you dedicate yourself.' You might recognize te from another common phrase: ¿Cómo te llamas? (What do you call yourself?).

How would I ask this formally if I am speaking to a stranger or someone older?

To ask this formally using usted (the polite 'you'), you need to change the pronoun and the verb ending. Te becomes se, and dedicas drops the 's' to become dedica. The formal question is ¿A qué se dedica?.