Sensei Iwasaki is my favorite, he's so cute and sweet and helpful in office hours. Literally a gem. You can read the other reviews for the class breakdown, but I would take this class just for Sensei. Love him.

TAKE THIS CLASS. Professor Iwasaki is an amazing professor and lecturer. He's extremely knowledgeable about Asian languages and linguistics and his passion for the subject made it easy and enjoyable to learn. I'm a bio major and took this class as an easy GE, but I truly learned a lot.
*disclaimer, I took this class during distance learning, so some aspects of the class were modified to be easier

-- The hw (30% of grade) is really straightforward, a worksheet every week or two which is just looking up definitions in the textbook and some questions after watching youtube videos.

--There are two midterms (each 5%) and one final (10%). They were all on CCLE and consisted of a bunch of multiple-choice questions with some free-response, pretty much all based on the lecture slides which are posted before each class. A bunch of my classmates were complaining about how "hard" the tests are, but as long as you take lecture notes and do the hw, tests are not difficult. Seriously.

--There is a group project (30%) on an underdocumented Asian language of your choice, which I found to be pretty fun. It's three small papers, a group PowerPoint and presentation, and a final write-up. As long as your group is competent, this project should not be an issue.

--There is a participation grade in this class (20%), which is mainly achieved from writing forum posts. 4-5 times throughout the quarter, Professor Iwasaki will post linguistics or language-related questions to respond to. Participation credit can also be gained by going to office hours.

Overall, Professor Iwasaki is approachable, accomodating, and knows the material like the back of his hand. If you have any interest in Asian languages or linguistics or even no experience at all, you should definitely take this class.

Honest to god, entered this class hating it. I only had taken it because I was looking up 'easy GE's' and when I started I hated the class. But honestly, I'm astounded by how genuine Professor Iwasaki was and my TA (Jaehyun Jo), and they were always available to help. I didn't even need to attend office hours because my TA covered everything I needed to know in section. Throughout the quarter, I started getting more interested in the class and even sharing knowledge I learned about Asian languages to my friends (who are asian ofc lol) and by the end of the quarter I was sad to leave the course. The workload is not that heavy (apparently there used to be much more and they lowered the workload this quarter) and the professor is very lenient/receptive to suggestions, and the midterms/exam is easy if you just pay attention to the slides (which are posted!) and the review that he gives you. I met a lot of great people in this class (and some koreaboos whom I'm scared of now) and I would totally recommend this class to an Asian friend (if you don't know an asian language/tonal language then maybe don't take the class because the listening part might be a little hard)

This is a pretty straightforward GE in which your grade is determined by your attendance and work outside of class. The quizzes are all online, open note, and multiple choice, and the final is almost entirely a repeat of questions from these quizzes with a few short answer questions. A large chunk of your grade comes from making presentations about a language with a group you get assigned in discussion (you don't actually present any of these until the very end with a 13 minute presentation during Week 9/10 discussion). Research for this project can take a bit of time since some of the topics are niche or are called different things than what the professor says, but it usually wasn't too bad. The professor is really nice and helpful, but the lectures can get really boring depending on what he talks about. Attendance to lecture and discussion is mandatory, which is done during discussion by writing your name down on a little sheet of paper or on a worksheet, while lecture attendance is done through a QR code question near the end of class.

Good if you're looking for a GE that's an easy A.

Mandatory attendance for lectures and discussions, you get 2 free skips. Lectures are alright. Most people just are doing other work during class... Professor purposefully designs his slides to not be understandable without his lecturing (it's just a bunch of photos and examples) so you sort of need to go to lecture anyways to understand what's even going on in class.

Majority of the class is just busywork- homeworks are a bunch of questions you answer while reading ~20 pages out of the textbook and/or watching ~5-8 minute videos. Discussion post every other week where you write 1-3 paragraphs about something random the professor was thinking about. Online weekly quizzes (all the answers are online).

Most of your grade is based on a group project. Groups are assigned randomly in your discussion and you get to choose a language to research (CHOOSE A WIDELY KNOWN LANGUAGE!!! IT'LL MAKE YOUR LIFE A LOT EASIER WHEN RESEARCHING AND WRITING REPORTS). Complete several "short reports" throughout the quarter which each person just makes a power point slide on some topic. Just be careful you follow the formatting and rubric because he's super picky with putting too much information on the slides and/or using wrong font .etc. Your group presents a final presentation week 9/10, each person speaks two minutes about some aspect your language.

Final is composed of MC that is verbatim word for word from the online MC quizzes assigned weekly throughout the quarter, and the free response questions were just slightly reworded versions of the study guide.

This was my favorite class that I took in Winter 2023. It was a nice break from taking the other STEM classes that I was in that quarter, and I enjoyed learning about Asian cultures and languages since I don't speak my native language nor do I know much about my own culture, and this class helped me connect with that more.
However, this is not the easiest GE out there. A good portion of your grade is based on a quarter-long group project, and you get put into groups in Week 2/3. You work on a report about an Asian language throughout the quarter and submit portions of it every couple of weeks to ensure progress. You submit a completed paper at the end of the quarter, make a final presentation that you present in discussion, and also take a final exam. The final presentation is based on the paper, and the final exam is recycled questions from the weekly quizzes you take with some short answer questions. The professor gives you a list of questions to help you study for the short answer questions. There are also homework assignments that are just answering questions from lectures and the textbook (which is rarely used), but it is a little annoying to do since they are unnecessarily long. Attendance is also taken in both lectures and discussions.
Overall though, Professor Iwasaki was very nice, funny, and taught well. He'd use slides and videos to help teach the concepts and was available to email if needed. I also had an amazing TA, Cherry, who made discussions fun. Discussions were often just talking about what we learned in class and debating a little on some questions that linguists are currently trying to solve. I would recommend this class if you're willing to put in some effort and have some interest in Asian languages.

I absolutely loved this class. There were so many topics the professor covered that the students wanted to learn about. This course is very manageable! There are a few homework assignments, quizzes, group papers, a group presentation, and exams. As long as you pay attention there is no reason that you won't get an A. Students were allowed to use their notes on all quizzes and exams. And the TA I had was Ariel so I can only speak from that perspective. She is very understanding and enthusiastic. She could answer any questions that anyone had. She was also very interested in meeting each student. I think this was the golden class to take and it was very refreshing. I always suggest that you take the class for yourself as some things written here won't always apply to you. Best of luck!

I really loved this class! Took it as a GE when it was offered online, so some things may be different in person, but I didn't find it too difficult. I would say definitely be prepared to put time into the class but I think an A is doable. The midterm and final both use questions from previous quizzes (these were everyday in lecture, but only used to check attendance). Also there was a large group project, that needed several writing projects and a presentation, but it isn't too bad if you have good group members. I would seriously recommend this as a GE, I had little to no interest in the course matter before and I actually found it really engaging and wanted to learn in class. However, as a warning, attendance was required and participation was a part of your grade. It's only like 3% of the grade or something, but contribution during lecture/discussion is necessary... I felt like I spoke up pretty often but got a low grade on this. However, I would still recommend, Professor Iwasaki was really nice and knowledgeable and my TA Ariel was amazing.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS UNLESS YOU HAVE A LINGUISTICS BACKGROUND. I came into this class with an open mind but the class pace during lecture is extremely fast. I felt often confused and would go to office hours and the TA would be so unhelpful. Luckily, the majority of the grade is a group project so I managed to get an A-, however my highest test grade was an 81.

I took this class mainly to figure out what I wanted to minor in and a lot of people recommended it to me. Best decision ever! I love Sensei and all the TAs and they were super helpful. As a STEM major, this was definitely something different and if you like learning about languages and cultures, this is a great class to take.

HW: So, for the most part it was one homework assignment per week (maybe once in a while two were due in the same week). The homework consisted of textbook questions and questions for YouTube videos. They did not take a lot of time to complete (like you could do it in a couple hours if you focus) and the TAs were pretty lenient with grading.

Tests: So with distance learning, the format might have been a little different this year but the midterms were open note and open book. For the first one, we were given a study guide which the short answer questions came from. The second midterm were questions from the in class quizzes and was also open note and open book. The midterms were fairly simple if you attend lecture. The final also had a study guide where the short answers and MC questions came from. All the tests are simple IF you pay attention during lecture and take some time to review the slides before the test.

Discussion: My TA was extremely helpful and often time I would rely on the discussion to clarify anything I didn't understand or to give a refresher of the week. During discussion, we would do review slides and maybe a group activity which were also fairly simple.

Group Project: There is a final project for this class which is basically to research an Asian language which was not as common and write a paper and give a presentation on. You are given adequate time to complete all of this and Sensei and the TAs are always willing to help and clarify any questions or concerns.

Overall, this class was one of my favorites and I'm truly going to miss it.