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Posted

I may be mishearing this phrase, but I've now heard it a few times: "...也...不到哪儿去". It seems to be used with adjectives, e.g. "好也好不到哪儿去". Could anyone tell me how it modifies the adjective?

Posted

(adjective)不到哪儿去 means "can't be that (adjective)". For example, 好不到哪儿去 means "can't be that good". It may be clearer in context, so for example, suppose someone tells you, "That is a really good book", you might reply, "It can't be that good. After all, it's being sold at a 90% discount".

As for the 也, that's not specific to this construction. It just adds further emphasis.

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Posted

I don't think the 'can't' sense is always in there, anonymoose. 好不到哪儿去 is often just something like, 'It's not all that', as in, 嗯,那地方确实不错,但好不到哪儿去 'Oh yeah, it is a pretty nice place but it's not really all that.'

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Posted

I think, if you want to say that, Jim, it'd sound better to put a 也 in there: 嗯,那地方确实不错,但也好不到哪儿去

Posted

Well, that's a matter of taste and habit; the main point I wanted to make was that it doesn't mean 'can't be...'

Posted

Here are some other examples from internet dictionaries:

你也好不到哪儿去

Look who's talking!

You are not much better!

就是在Twitter上,情况也好不到哪儿去

Over on Twitter, things aren't much better.

据埃迪估计这一天风大不到哪儿去,甚至可能风平浪静。

Eddy said he did not think they would have much of a breeze and it might even be a calm.

These suggest to me that one interpretation is the sense of "not much...".

At least one source labels the phrase as "slang".

Posted

Is this what you would label an "idiomatic" expression? I tried to read it literally and ended up with something like "didn't arrive where we were going", I guess the meaning of "not all that great" comes from that? I'm still a beginner at Mandarin :)

Posted
I tried to read it literally and ended up with something like "didn't arrive where we were going"

Think about it more like "not good enough to get you anywhere" -> it's not all that.

Posted

It's not always negative. It can be 也差/壞不到哪兒去.

ok time to watch the good wife.

Posted

@deathtrap

Depends on your definition "idiom". Here is one definition that I could conclude says that the phrase is "idiomatic".

"an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up" wordnetweb.princeton.edu

Here is another

"An expression that has special meaning as a whole and which cannot be translated word by word: They had a ball. (They had a very good time.)"

www.athabascau.ca

Several other web sources provide definitions similar in nature to these.

Posted
It's not always negative. It can be 也差/壞不到哪兒去.

Yep.

I was referring to 好不到哪儿去, but didn't make it clear.

Posted

My understanding, when I say 好不到哪去 or 坏不到哪去,more likely is to compare to something. Like, one person said Shanghai is so hot in the summer, I may say 北京也好不到哪去。

Somebody may say,The next door restaurant is bad. I may say, that is Ok, 坏不到哪去。

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