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How do I say "People move to wherever they can earn more money"?

  • Люди переезжают туда, куда можно зарабатывать больше денег.
  • Люди переезжают куда можно зарабатывать больше денег.
  • Люди переезжают туда, где можно зарабатывать больше денег.
  • Люди переезжают куда, где можно зарабатывать больше денег.
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    I think all variants lack this "ever"-ness of English phrase. I would translate this as "переезжают куда угодно, где ". But this depends on context.
    – Alex Yu
    May 29, 2018 at 7:02

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The correct one is the 3rd

Люди переезжают туда, где можно зарабатывать больше денег.

Or a bit shorter

Люди переезжают туда, где больше зарабатывают.

Please also pay attention to the correct spelling of the word переезжают.

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  • Thank you so much! That's the syntax I was thinking of the most, by the way. As for the conjugation... ouch, there are too many subtleties in Russian!!! I had amended переедут which would be correct however perfective. Then I came up with переезжать as the imperfective counterpart, but got the conjugation pattern wrong. There's always something we don't know yet in Russian!!
    – swrutra
    May 29, 2018 at 3:10
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    I would say the second is a bit weird. Usually, at the moment of movement people don't earn money yet. Maybe, Люди переезжают туда, где больше заработают. will be better?
    – Dmitriy
    May 29, 2018 at 10:16
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    @Dmitry No, it's not weirtd. It's absolutely okay.
    – Abakan
    May 29, 2018 at 13:39
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    @Abakan the second version in the Dmitry's answer is only okay if зарабатывают is understood as referring not to people who переезжают but to people in general making the subordinate clause an impersonal sentence like the English where THEY earn more in which THEY doesn't mean anyone in particular
    – Баян Купи-ка
    May 30, 2018 at 7:49
  • And there may occur even shorter (if somewhat ungrammatical) form: "...переезжают, где можно..." ("туда" omitted, may be spoken with a shortish pause instead of it).
    – yury10578
    May 31, 2018 at 4:59
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In my opinion a more accurate and idiomatic rendering would be with the verb in perfective aspect

Люди переезжают туда, где можно зарабОТАТЬ больше денег

The "ever"-ness present in the English sentence i think can at least to some degree be conveyed with conditional mood

Люди переезжают туда, где можно было бы зарабОТАТЬ больше денег

With the word угодно suggested by Ingaz in my opinion it would sound better with the subordinate clause being introduced with conjunction чтобы

Люди переезжают куда угодно, чтобы зарабОТАТЬ больше денег

even though this rendering isn't completely equivalent to the English sentence

A combination pronoun + угодно as the main clause indicator for a subordinate clause in a complex sentence doesn't seem typical to Russian. Corpus of Russian language lists very few such cases.

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