Barbecue pictures

Not the most successful barbecue in the history of barbecues, but fun nonetheless. These pictures create the illusion that food was cooked that night when in fact it was consumed pretty close to raw. All the beer helped to kill the germs.

I had a student ask me what 'pretty' meant in the sentence 'its pretty big.' I never really thought about it, but it could mean either 'very' or 'kind of' in that context, depending on the intonation. Usually I give whatever answer is easiest but I was determined to explain this one as accurately as I could. I think they understood the concept but intonation is lost on most Japanese, whose language lacks it completely.