This class was interesting but actually very hard. In my opinion Professor Faytak expected a lot (maybe too much) out of us for people who hadn't had any phonetics training prior to this course. The production exam was okay, but I found the transcription exam to be very hard. The course also has a paper, and Professor Faytak was very unclear when it came to how it was graded - he basically said that it would be different for every language, which you can imagine was unhelpful. Definitely go to office hours frequently, I think it made him like me a lot more and ultimately contributed to him possibly bumping me. I really liked him and the class was fun but I think unnecessarily difficult.

Matthew has a masterful knowledge of all the material he teaches. He is a very well-spoken, effective lecturer but he does expect a lot from his students and, as such, grading can be harsher than your average ling class. Definitely make sure you come to lecture and participate in the in-class quizzes, as they help you tremendously when preparing for the transcription/production exam.

A textbook is required for this class technically, but I didn't find myself needing to use it. His lectures are plenty informative.

Matt is very methodical and goes through the courseload thoughtfully. He will generally give extra details about articulatory phonetics, since that is his field of research, but you will learn less about acoustical phonetics. He will still tell you the basics of formants though, so if you want to go more into the acoustics side, you can take 104.

I found Matt's lectures easy to pay attention to. He knows how to talk to a class. He is also very good at answering questions in class and in office hours. You can benefit a lot from going to his OH, particularly if you want help with production (there is an exam at the end of the class in which you have to produce a lot of made-up words that are written with IPA symbols). The paper can take a while, but it's the only major assignment you have over the course of the class, so focus your efforts there. It can be very interesting if you make it so.

The issue I had with this class was the transcription exam. This is the final basically, so everyone goes into the classroom (where you discover half of the class never showed up to lectures), and he plays recordings he made in rural China or wherever, and you have to transcribe the words in IPA. It was very difficult, because I was in a spot where the speakers were less prominent, and the A/C was blasting, which I don't think can be turned off in PubAff, so it was hard to hear the recordings (and you have to be sensitive to very fine phonetic detail). Everyone seemed to have problems though, because he curved the exam. I did about as well as I expected in the end, so it all worked out, and it's a minor complaint.

This class was easily the most difficult class I had this quarter. For reference, I also was taking MATH31A and COM SCI 31 this quarter. I had also received an A+ with professor Vahideh Rasekhikolokdaragh for LING 20. I took this class P/NP, but had I done letter grade, I think I would have gotten a B. It's difficult to explain why the class was hard because I don't consider linguistics my strongest subject. I think my struggles with the class is probably because linguistics is one of my weakest subjects and not because of the professor.

The bulk of the class will depend on your performance on weekly problem sets (usually around 2-3 questions, each with 2-3 parts) and quizzes (usually around 20 questions). I averaged 80-90% on quizzes and 70-90% on problem sets because I struggled to apply the concepts we learned in class. For quizzes, he will ask you questions that you can easily find in his lecture slides, notes, and IPA charts. But he will also ask you to apply your knowledge such as identifying possible sounds, identifying sounds based of wavelengths, and how sounds are produced. Problem sets are similarly set up. They're usually two to three questions asking you to use that week's concepts to evaluate languages from different parts of the world. I typically lost points on transcription because I struggled to perceive the different sounds he asked us to transcribe. I also struggled answering written response to seemingly theoretical questions, such as why certain sounds could/couldn't be produced in a language.

I think you will want to go beyond the lecture materials and read the textbook to fully understand the material. He tends to ask very peculiar and detailed questions that you might not find in lecture, but that he might ask on exam/quizzes/problem sets.

With that said, I wouldn't be quick attribute the class' difficulty with the professor. I personally struggled with linguistics, but the professor was easily one of the most kind and understanding professors I've ever had. Throughout the quarter, he would email us reassuring us that he wanted to make sure we had adequate support to complete the course and encouraged us to reach out if we had questions or required further accommodations in light of the pandemic and protests.

Throughout the quarter, he offered several resources for us to practice transcription and encouraged us to use section as an opportunity to practice the concepts we learned in class. Our TA, Jennifer, was very helpful and did a great job clarifying concepts. Professor Faytak was a great lecturer and knew how to convey several concepts in-depth clearly within a single lecture (I suppose it's possible that the fact that we covered so many concepts also made the class a bit more difficult). He made the final no-harm given the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests at the time. He also dropped a quiz and problem set to lighten the workload for us.

I would recommend this class if you're really interested in linguistics and want to work with a professor who knows his stuff, and knows it well. But if you're looking for an easy A for your major, you're probably going to have to put in more work than you expected.

Grading breakdown:
5% section attendance
25% problem sets
20% quizzes
20% midterm exam
30% final exam