Confessions of a Minnesotan

     English is not my first language.  I grew up in central Minnesota.  Minnesotan, (pronounced Minasood'n) is my mother tongue.  My mother tells me that I didn't speak at all until I was almost 3 years old.  She quickly added that was probably because things were going pretty good, so I didn't need to talk. Going to school I came in contact with other cultures.  Immigrants who came from such far away places as Iowa, Illinois, even New York.  I eventually learned to speak, understand, read and write American English "pretty good.", but I sometimes revert to my Minnesotan to express important concepts.  (See also "Norwegian and Minnesotan")
     One of these concepts is the phrase "pretty good".  I'm pretty good at math.  That doesn't mean I don't make occasional mistakes, or that I know anything about trigonometry or calculus, but I can do simple calculations in my head, and know that a section of land is 640 acres, 1 mile on each side, and 10 acres is 660 feet on each side. There's a lot of math I can't do, but for a Minnesotan, I'm "pretty good."
     When I brought home my straight A report card from the first grade, my mother smiled and said "That's pretty good, David."  I knew I had received high praise.  On rare occasions my father said "pretty darn good"
     That being said, when I say I speak pretty good Spanish, it means I can converse on general topics and understand most of what I hear.  You might lose me in a conversation on macro-economics, quantum physics or a host of other topics which don't interest me, but you might also lose me on those topics in English or Minnesotan,
     So when I say I have become pretty good at a language, or that I have a goal of becoming pretty good, you'll know what I mean.