# Great detective work!



## clevermizo

Just out of curiosity, is there any similar Arabic idiom to the English "Great detective work!". It's an expression we say sometimes to praise someone for doing amazing and unexpected investigation to address a certain question. Usually no one asked them to do this, but suddenly they just happen to have all the information we need.

For example, suppose I'm sitting with some friends and we're wondering, "You know it would be fun to plan a trip over land to South America. What an adventure! I wonder what the best way to do that is..." Then the following day I get a call from one of them, and he or she already has researched all the bus schedules, places we should stay, places that are dangerous and how much it might cost.

Maybe this is really specific, but everyone knows a person like this in their lives. What do you say to them after they tell you all this information? مبروك عليك يا بوليسي? Or if I did say something like that, humorously, would that be "strange" or just comical?


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## Kinan

First, it's not مبروك, it should be برافو عليك
I don't think there is an idiom for that in Arabic, but something like برافو عليك يا محقق would do the job ..we usually associate the word بوليسي with كلب بوليسي.


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## clevermizo

Oops, thanks Kinan. Of course it should be برافو.

About the word محقق - In your dialect do you say مــحــقــِّق (with قاف) or مــحــئئ (with همزة)?


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## Kinan

Depends on the region, in general we Alawites use ق all the time while Sunnis use الهمزة.


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## AndyRoo

I wonder if you could say *عظيم يا كرومبو*
??


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## Kinan

Sounds familiar, is it Egyptian? I wonder if they mean كولومبو


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## AndyRoo

Yes it's an Egyptian cartoon character - Detective Korombo. I thought he might be famous everywhere, but it seems not.


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## Kinan

It must be an ancient cartoon then.


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## AndyRoo

Only a couple of years old. It was a phone-in competition and you had to work out who committed the crime. You can find his videos on youtube - they're good for language learners.


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## clevermizo

AndyRoo said:


> Yes it's an Egyptian cartoon character - Detective Korombo. I thought he might be famous everywhere, but it seems not.



Yeah, this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Something culturally relevant. I wonder if any of the Egyptian speakers here could say anything about whether يا كرومبو has some idiomatic meaning?

(Maybe like the way we use "Sherlock".)


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## rayloom

Just a side note:
The name of the recent cartoon character كورومبو is a spin-off from the detective series Columbo (which was more popular throughout the Arab world, more so the كورومبو). Although I'm not sure if using either names in this case would cut it! (maybe so for some who are familiar with either character).


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## cherine

AndyRoo said:


> I wonder if you could say *عظيم يا كرومبو*
> ??


Andy, I'm impressed!
It didn't occur to me, and while reading the thread -before reaching your post- I was thinking that there's no equivalent in Arabic for the English expression.

It's true that not everyone know about this caracter (I myself have only watched 3 or 4 episodes by pure coincidence, when I was visiting my brother). But I think it's know enough in Egypt to be understood.

Taking from the other posts, I think شرلوك هولمز would be a more commonly known name in the Arabic world.

Other than these, I really can't think of an expression that could be like the English one.


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## Silky_Sword

We don't have the profession of "detective" like in Western TV shows that are 'cool' and all  We have informants only  And they're not good people to use their title to describe someone.

What's true of one culture / language isn't necessarily true of another


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## إسكندراني

مفتش كرومبو is perfect for me!


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## Gaed

I believe just a single compliment would do the job. E.g. برافو عليك, قشطة, يا عيني عليك. But adding the كرمبو stuff would confuse people like me. If you insist you may use كونان as most Arab are familiar with him, I think. 

In some Syrian dialects, أيه شو هالكونان هاد sounds natural and humorous.


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## إسكندراني

I found myself wanting to express this and all I had in my head was إنت بطل / شكراً يا بطل!
Maybe it could help someone  since I wanted to gratify effort rather than 'cunning'.


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## إسكندراني

I saw this on someone's Facebook status:


> لنت وزارة الداخليه منذ قليل عن الحركة العامة وهي كالاتى . . . .  .......... . . . . . . . . . . . سوبر مان مديرا لأمن القاهرة..بات مان  للجيزة.سبيدرمان لاسكندرية.المحقق *كونان* للامن الوطني.*كرومبو* مديرا  للمباحث.مازنجر لقطاع الحراسات وجلنديزر لمكافحة الارهاب.سلاحف النينجا  للامن المركزي.وكابتن ماجد لاتحاد الشرطة. ونرجو أن تنال الحركة رضا الشعب  المصري العظيم,اصل هنجيب مين تانى


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## Kinan

Silly status but useful for the thread.


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## Abu Talha

How about يا لك من محقق بارع!


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## إسكندراني

فتّش might be more suitable than حقّق because you're not 'interrogating', rather you are 'digging things up'.
So مفتّش sounds better to me! شكراً للتفتيش
In Egypt we could also say *دعبسـ*ت ع الحاجة لغاية ما لقيتها but maybe I'm straying off now...


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