In order to survive: 生きていくために or 生き残るために? what is the diffence?

Question

I am trying to translate the sentence: what are you willing to do to survive?

I ended up translating it as: 生き残るために何を喜んでするの？

Is this correct? Or have I botched my translation? The other way I translated it was: 生きていくために何を喜んでするだろう？

I'm trying to translate it into casual Japanese for a story I am making but I am not very confident in my own translations... Is there a difference between 生きていくために and 生き残るために? In addition, should I use the particle の or だろう in this question?

Answer 1

• 喜んで～する is more like "to be delighted/honored to do ～". It might be okay if the subject were "I", but you should not use 喜んで when the subject is "you". Instead, you can say 何ができるの or 何をしてくれるの (if the implication is "what can you do for me/us").
• 生き残る is "to survive" and 生きていく is "to live on" or "to live from now on". The former focuses on the current hardship at hand, whereas the latter focuses on the future after you have survived.
• だろう is basically "I wonder"; it forms a question addressed to yourself. If this question is directly addressed to a person in front of you, don't use だろう. See: だろう in question context?

It's hard to give a correct translation without enough context, but 生き残るために何ができるの is a possible question if they are alone and in danger, although it sounds a bit arrogant.

Answer 2

生き残るために which is the nuance of "in order to survive" is used in a more competitive situation than 生きていくために which is the nuance of "to continue living".

However it can be almost the same depends on how you use it. I think 生き残る is more concrete and sounds more demographic-conscious than 生きていく which can be your personal opinion.

の here sounds more of requesting you to choose what you want to/should do than だろう sounding asking you to give an opinion.