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Today I went to a language exchange and a nice lady from Beijing told me to use 掙錢 instead of 賺錢。 I asked whether the latter was 口語 and she replied 賺錢 was something one said “just like that”. So now I am confused.
For 掙錢 pleco defines: earn (or make) money For 賺錢 make money (or a profit)
The first one does sound a bit more like involving work, but I cannot really be sure of the distinction.
I'd like to make a supplement based upon previous answers:
Usually, 挣钱 and 赚钱 are exactly the same. But in some special cases, 挣钱 could reflect a scenario of hard working, since making money is not easy, while 赚钱 could mean that making money is easy, compared with 挣钱.
Here, the verb 挣 sounds like you have to make great effort to, you can see the verb 挣扎, which means struggle. The verb 赚 means making a profit, it can also be used as an adjective.
So we have the following phrases: 努力挣钱，working hard to make money (though 努力赚钱 is also possible) and 躺着赚钱, making money while lying on the bed.
Both 挣钱 and 赚钱 can mean "to earn money"(by working) or " to make money"(by trading)
赚钱 can refer to making tiny, modest or huge amount of money
挣钱 usually refer to making modest amount of money
赚钱 can also be use as an adjective for "profitable" as in "赚钱的生意" (profitable business )
We cannot use 挣钱 as the adjective "profitable". There's no "挣钱的生意", only "赚钱的生意"
There is no significant difference between 挣钱 and 赚钱.
挣钱 because of 挣, has a feeling that you're making a living, it's something that you have to struggle to do.
赚钱 just means "earn money". But nobody really cares about the difference.
