No offense, but one has to try really hard in order not to do well in the course. Just showing up to lectures and look over the hand out will put you in a decent place in terms of understanding the material. When I was taking the course, everything was nicely organized -- we knew what to expect and what to prepare. Professor Anh is very approachable if you need any help with the material. I had a good time in her class.

Professor Ahn is one of the kindest professors I've ever had at UCLA! She never treats any question like it's a dumb question, even if it's about something she literally just went over or clearly articulated earlier, and really cares about student learning and understanding. When most of the class did poorly on one of the quizzes, she gave us an optional replacement quiz later on in the quarter (with the same TYPE of content, but obviously not the exact same problems themselves) so that we could try to earn a higher score. She even brought us Godiva chocolate for Halloween and allowed students to leave class early if they needed to head out to another midterm right after or whatever.

The handouts from every lecture are very helpful, not only because it saves you the time and effort from having to type up/write out notes yourself, but also because they are very organized and make for a good study tool. Towards the latter half of the quarter there will be more guest lectures, some of which provide handouts and some of which don't, and also some of which are pretty dry and some of which are kinda cool (depending on where your interests lie).

There's an in-class quiz and a homework assignment every week; the homework is definitely more difficult than the quizzes (which is a good thing, because you can check your answers with classmates, go to office hours for help, etc.), but your lowest grade for each is dropped in the end. The final was a bit long and tedious, but if you really knew your stuff (studied and understood the material) then it was very doable.

I just had to write a review to defend Professor Ahn because the one below is so attacking that many prospective students trying to take this class or professor will be surprised when they have her, and see how nice and fair she actually is:

To be fair to the critique below, Suzy tries her best to articulate her lectures, but at the end of the day a combination of her accent and reading off the packet of notes (each student gets a packet at the beginning of class) leaves students zoned out or doing other things. Most of the time I'd spend the class dozing off or on my phone, and sometimes I would feel bad for Suzy because she'd ask a question, have 0 response and audience participation, and answer it herself. If you're looking to master phonological structures, this probably won't be the class for you, yet Suzy does provide a decent foundation of the rudimentary topics.

In terms of grading, Professor Ahn is very lenient and easy. There is a quiz a week (7 of the 8 count towards your final grade), and she tells you beforehand what to study. The questions are very straightforward too, and most students average 9-10 /10 per quiz. The homeworks are a little more difficult and require some time, but at the end of the quarter I had a 97% average on my hw/quizzes, which make up around 40% of the grade. Her final is not tricky either. She gives a final exam study guide beforehand with practice questions, and she genuinely makes the exam so that no student would struggle if they have reviewed. As she says she's "not out to trick anyone". I ended with an A on the final, and I can tell you I really did not put too much effort into this class, and you won't have to too. She's a real down-to-earth person and cares for her students. Good luck in 119A!

Suzy is so sweet! She is so considerate of students and concerned for our well-being. The final and quizzes were very fair, and homework wasn't too bad either.

Honestly, you'd have to really screw up to not get an A- or higher. I will say that her lectures can get really boring at times, especially if phonology isn't your favorite part of linguistics. If you are actively engaged in class for the entire lecture, that is all you need to do well on the hw, quizzes, and the final. You could get by without reading the textbook, but it is extremely helpful at times.

Don't skip section though, because attendance in section is 5% of your grade.

Prof Ahn is super sweet and really tries to make the class manageable.
She's a new teacher, so she's always asking for feedback with the quizzes and homework. If it's too hard, she'll adjust it and be lenient on the grading. She's really caring, always happy to be interrupted and to answer questions.
I asked her a brief question once in class and after class, she sent me an email with basically an entire essay full of examples and a detailed explanation.

Every class, she hands out a packet filled with material and exercises, and you have to follow along to fill in the blanks. It may seem repetitive, but I thought it was better than just listening to a lecture and taking notes the whole time, like in my other ling classes.

The class itself isn't bad at all, it's just that everyone in class was always dead silent and only few people participated. So for those saying that the class isn't engaging, it's because of their lack of effort more than anything. She was always so happy when people answered her questions, but unfortunately, a lot of times, people just left her hanging.

Also, I don't get how others are saying that the class was unorganized? We followed the syllabus, and each lesson, she taught based on the handout she made for us. The class was actually really organized..

Suzy also makes the material easy to understand. You don't have to read the book, but it would definitely help, especially since for some quizzes, she literally pulls examples from the book.

Homework took a bit of time but still not the worst, it's best to work with others, in case you start overthinking. There wasn't a midterm and the final was hella long but doable. She gives extra credit with sona and in quizzes and homeworks. She also lets you make a double sided page cheat sheet for each quiz and two pages (four sides) for the final. Also, guest lectures were really fun and interesting, and the question about the lectures were super easy on the finals.

Overall, I'd totally recommend taking the class or any class with Prof Ahn. I was terrified of phonology from ling 20, but I didn't end up doing too bad in the class. Literally just fill in the packet she gives, study from it, and you're good

This is the worst professor I've ever had the misfortune of taking a class with. Her lectures are incredibly unengaging, and nearly every lecture, I see some of the best linguistics students I've ever met, who ace Ling 20 and go on to kill every other ling class, struggle to pay attention to her lectures. She gives handouts and gives a rudimentary explanation of them in her lectures, and the entire latter half of the quarter is spent on irrelevant guest lecturers. I took phonetics with her and barely made it through, only because the TA (Eleanor Glewwe) was wonderful at explaining the material and continued to have us practice on it even throughout the useless guest lecture portion of the class. My TA covered easier questions, never really explaining anything as he walked us through the problems. If you have take any upper div ling course, don't take it with Suzy Ahn.

Take her class will destroy your GPA! She could not decide how her class would be, even grading, she needed to ask her TA. She is the worst professor I've ever met.

She’s really nice but unorganized and her lectures aren’t very clear. I don’t feel like I learned much. The guest lectures were interesting.