NPCR 3 sentence translation

[Glenn]

That's a funny joke, creamyhorror. That aside, he doesn't exactly show that the use of 哪儿 in the example sentence is linked to that use of 哪里. Granted, I'm mostly just going by the words as I came across them in the original sentence and my experience with the use of どこ (何処/doko) in Japanese seeming to fall in line with that use. I'm assuming you can't say 哪儿哪儿 in place of 哪里哪里 when you're declining a compliment. Is that right? Does that use of 哪里 just transfer to 哪儿 in sentences because they both have the same meaning, even though you couldn't replace 哪里哪里 with 哪儿哪儿 (assuming that's right)?

At any rate, I still don't see much of a problem with reading the original sentence the way I read it, at least not for me. I'm now wondering, though -- is it commonly taught as an extension of 哪里哪里 in the use given in the example sentence? I'm starting to assume it is, given the way this thread has gone.

[creamyhorror]

"我哪儿有你说的那么漂亮？" is the same as "我哪里有你说的那么漂亮？" to me (and I'd guess to most native speakers). They're both rhetorically asking, "Just how am I as pretty as you said?", and not literally asking, "Which part of me is pretty?" (You can confirm this with native speakers; it's really the crux of the issue.) That's why there are usages like "我哪里会解这种数学题" and "我哪儿有时间", which don't fit with a literal "where" interpretation.

I view 哪里哪里 as being a reduction/derivative of 我哪里有你说的那么好. The rhetorical 哪里 as used in that sentence has become the set phrase 哪里哪里.

Finally, I think I saw mention of 哪儿呀，哪儿呀 being an equivalent to 哪里哪里, but that requires native speaker confirmation.

[Glenn]

Ah, so it goes the other way (mid-sentence 哪里 -> 哪里哪里). I still can see it as a "where", like "what part of me can solve that problem?" (rhetorical) and "what part of me has time?" (rhetorical), both stating the negative. I guess I'm just seeing a 的 in there that isn't there, i.e., 我的哪儿... That's how it functionally feels to me, even if no one would say that. That's probably more L2 interference than anything though, I suppose.

[jkhsu]

Adding my 2 cents here. I asked a native speaker about 哪儿/哪里 in the usage described in this thread and they said it does not mean "where" to them and that they don't think of "where". I think creamyhorror is right but I think the reason Glenn always thinks of "where" is that when he first learned 哪儿/哪里, he associated it with "where". Actually, I can see how one can get confused there. However, the word "where" is really an English translation of 哪儿/哪里. It seems like to native Chinese speakers, they see the usage of 哪儿/哪里 in a totally different way than "where" in the context of this thread. That's my best guess at what's going on here. That's at least one more data point to add to this discussion.