In today’s post, I thought it would be fun to break down this manga panel together! For the rest of December, I’m going to try to include more Christmas themed vocabulary in my Japanese study posts.
To start, let’s create a word bank so that we understand each of the words.
** For this post, you need to be able to read hiragana and katakana as I won’t be providing romaji readings**
This picture is from volume three of the manga “まいりました先輩” You can check it out for yourself here!
Word Bank
- ２日・ふつか・two days
- 俺・おれ・me, I
- 友達・ともだち・friend(s)
- 仲良くする・なかよくする・to get along well with (someone)
- 〜てくれる・to do the favour of…
- お願い・おねがい・request
- だけ・only
- きく・to listen
Let’s get translating!
The first speech bubble says:
まあ。。。２日も俺の友達と仲良くしてくれたし
As this is a longer sentence, we’ll have to break it down a little bit in order to fully understand it.
1
まあ。。。
- This is a word that doesn’t really hold all that much meaning. We can translate it as “well…” or “I guess…”, but it’s more of an indication of thinking out loud
2
２日も俺の友達と
- ２日 can mean “the second of the month”, but in this scenario it means “two days
- 俺 means I. Out of all the words that mean “me”, 俺 is a more masculine, mature choice.
- 友達 means friend(s). It can be plural or singular, depending on the context.
- と – in this scenario, this particle means “together”, or “with.”
We can roughly translate this part of the sentence as “for two whole days with my friends…“
3
仲良くしてくれてたし
- 仲良くする is a verb that means “to get along well.” As in, “those two get along well together.”
- して is the て form of the verb する.
- ~てくれる means to “do the favour of~~~”. We attach くれる at the end of a verb in the て form to create this grammar point.
- し in this scenario is used to list examples of a non exhaustive list.
We can translate this part of the sentence as “(Did me the favour of) getting along well (with my friends) (for one).”
1 + 2 + 3
Putting all three parts together, we can translate the first speech bubble a little more literally as ” Well… for two whole days you did me the favour of getting along well with my friends, for one“
A little less literally, we can translate this sentence as “Well… You did get along well with my friends for two whole days…“
Now, let’s take a look at the second speech bubble!
The second sentence is:
いいよ。。。そのお願いだけきくよ。。。
1
いいよ。。。
- いい means “good”
- よ is a particle that adds emphasis at the end of a statement.
With such a short phrase, we should be able to translate it no problem! We can translate it as “it’s okay.” In this case, there is the implicit meaning of “I’ll do it” hidden in it.
2
そのお願いだけきくよ。。。
- その means “that”
- お願い means “wish” or “request.” Putting お in front of the word 願い makes it a little bit prettier.
- だけ means “only”
- きく is a verb that means “to listen.” We usually see it written using Kanji, so don’t let the hiragana throw you!
We can translate this sentence as “I’ll listen to only this request.” When talking about granting wishes and requests, we often see the word “きく (to listen)” rather than “叶う/叶える (to grant)” The meaning is usually something like “I’ll listen to your request (and then give it to you)”
And that’s it! If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below!
If you want any extra Japanese lessons, please check out my Patreon here!
Maddies Manga 
Leave a comment