Chevron Left
Back to Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics by Universiteit Leiden

4.7
stars
2,420 ratings

About the Course

Everywhere, every day, everybody uses language. There is no human society, no matter how small or how isolated, which does not employ a language that is rich and diverse. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language! The Miracles of Human Language introduces you to the many-faceted study of languages, which has amazed humans since the beginning of history. Together with speakers of many other languages around the world, as well as with famous linguists such as Noam Chomsky and Adele Goldberg, you will learn to understand and analyse how your native tongue is at the same time similar and different from many other languages. You will learn the basic concepts of linguistics, get to know some of the key features of big and small languages and get insight into what linguists do. This course gives an introduction into the study of languages, the field of linguistics. With the support of the basic linguistic terminology that is offered in the course, you will soon be able to comment both on variety between languages, as well as on a single language’s internal structure. Anyone who wishes to understand how languages work, and how they can give us insight into the human mind is very welcome to join. The course is useful if you want to get a fairly quick introduction into linguistics, for instance because you are considering studying it further, or because you are interested in a neighbouring discipline such as psychology, computer science or anthropology. Furthermore, the course will help you develop analytical skills. If you are curious to understand how language works and how it gives insight into the human mind, this course is definitely for you!...

Top reviews

DC

Sep 23, 2017

Extremely informational, well presented, with questions that stimulate reflection. The optional reading material is food for thought. I hope to see more courses from the same professor and University.

SS

Nov 29, 2021

I've taken a number of online courses on linguistics now, and this one was by and far the best. The material covered is indepth and engaging, and the professor's enthusiam makes the videos a delight.

Filter by:

576 - 600 of 738 Reviews for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

By John W

Aug 8, 2021

Loved it!

By daniel d

Mar 4, 2020

Excellent

By petya

Dec 17, 2018

brilliant

By adriano m

Nov 22, 2017

very good

By Géraldine G

Jul 28, 2017

Excellent

By Daniel V

May 26, 2017

muy bueno

By Nicolas M

Jan 11, 2023

Thanks!!

By Pham V C

Jun 15, 2020

Good !

By Theodoro C F

Oct 9, 2017

Great!

By Ken

Aug 7, 2017

非常好的课程

By Ái V

Sep 24, 2024

GREAT

By Nguyen Q T K H

Mar 10, 2022

nice

By Le T T H (

Jul 4, 2020

good

By Quan T P

Jun 15, 2020

good

By Yao M

Sep 24, 2019

Fun!

By Tran T H N

Mar 11, 2021

no

By Margaret T

Mar 20, 2022

H

By Lorena R d l M

Mar 23, 2020

.

By Christopher B

Aug 14, 2017

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. It gave me an excellent overview of linguistics as the scientific study of language. The presentation style was really engaging as Maarten interacts with Martin, Inge and guests. The downloadable lecture transcripts were fantastic. That said, I have a few suggestions:

1) Include more free online resources. Most the background reading material were Amazon books, which are expensive if you come from a country with a weak currency. On the practical note, most telelearners like myself don't have time to read an entire book. It would have been far better to include journeys.

2) If students want to do the honours course, allow them to study on a different academic schedule. I found it impossible to complete research assignments and tests at the same.

3) A few assessment questions were poorly phrased and this leads to confusion on the single and multiple select quizzes.

4) Commenting and replying to questions wasn't that interactive. Hoping that somebody would randomly reply or comment to your answer was frustrating. If we were paired up with online study partners, we could discuss topics together.

5)Lastly, fix for typos on course material and tests.

MOOC's are definitely the future of education in an increasing globalized and connected world. Thank you for a great module.

By Ralitsa N

Oct 14, 2018

The course is interesting and offers a theoretical basis together with real language examples, that is a good combination when trying to put some of the theory in practice. The interviews with researchers also offer different perspective into interesting topics. What I consider not quite well accomplished are the tests: some offer incorrect answers to questions that already have been pointed out, as mentioned by the staff, in previous editions. Not having them corrected rests credibility to the entire course material. The final test includes some questions that although having relationship with a particular module, are hardly something relevant to take away from this course (e.g. in what sentence did a language informant repeat a nasal sound as a result of a speech error). If we consider tests as a learning tool, as they should be, the way they are designed should be more careful and meaningful to the learner. Despite the parts that to me need improvement, I want to thank to everybody involved in preparing and offering this MOOC, as I know from personal experience how challenging this can be.

By Muhip T

May 30, 2020

More comprehensive than I thought. Starts with a good introduction and goes through different areas of linguistics: phonology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, biological aspects etc. Although some videos have some mistakes in them, course material is high quality. Lectures and interviews are professional and language informants have been chosen well (thanks and congratulations to each informant!)

I gave 4 stars because I felt that the quizzes and the final exam were a bit too detailed for an online course. It would be worse if they were too easy, but I think this difficulty is still a bit over the top (although I passed almost all of them at first attempt)

I definitely like when courses force attendants to go on the forum, write their ideas and respond to others. This mandatory interaction definitely works and the forum is full of brilliant comments and good discussions.

To sum up: difficult exams but the course has been prepared very professionally and whoever wants to have a basic understanding of the study of linguistics would gain a lot from this.

By Andrew D

May 11, 2020

Great course and a fantastic introduction to linguistics. The Professor's passion for the subject is infectious, and he and the assistants present information very clearly. The interviews also allow the participant an insight into current developments in the field.

The discussion forum was a particularly good touch. It was interesting to see a lot of different perspectives and interpretations. This was the most rewarding in the pragmatics section, with the differing interpretations about whether a student in the scenario presented had violated any of Grice's maxims.

Areas for improvement:

- Some of the quiz questions felt very ambiguous; like there could be more than one correct answer. This led to some annoying dropped marks.

- The honours assignment instructions were quite unclear (this came up in the forums also).

- Missing content like subtitles from the language informant videos.

Overall, would thoroughly recommend this course, both for beginners and for those with some or even much linguistic knowledge.

By Laurel L

Sep 9, 2023

This was definitely one of the more informative and comprehensive courses I've taken on Coursera so far. The professor was enthusiastic about the material and provided a lot of useful information. I enjoyed the discussions and feel I gained a lot of knowledge. My main complaint is in relation to the quizzes. I echo what others have said about them: many of them were intensely frustrating. Some of the question did not pertain to the subject matter at all (such as being able to read a family tree chart) and some required you to interpret rare languages that few have ever heard of. Unlike other courses I've taken on Coursera, I found myself having to take the quizzes for this course several times to pass, despite taking notes and reading all the required supplemental articles (except the ones for which the links no longer work). Overall, if this topic interests you, there's a lot of good information here. But be expected to be incredibly frustrated by the quizzes.

By Francesca P

May 24, 2020

I really enjoyed this course and I feel lucky for having the chance to learn new things about Linguistics with a prestigious university such as Leiden. The only thing that doesn't make me give five stars is that in some points the course was not perfectly clear: in the second week I got information about the way we were supposed to pass the quiz through the forum and when I asked a question on the forum no one ever answered to me. I understand this may be because not everyone feels to get involved in the discussions, but I feel that there should be someone from the organisation side actually checking if everything is going smooth or not. Another thing I didn't find very well made was in week 6 the article on Lebov: because the article was no longer available, you were supposed to see a hour long video to get the information for the quiz. Anyway, a part from these little feedback, I enjoyed the course and I feel that I have more background information now.

By Pathematica

Jul 22, 2021

I took ths course out of interest rather than to make progress in a career. It provides an interesting survey of several topics in linguistics, which assists in choosing other material for further private study. Given the shortness of the course, some of the material is relatively superficial but that is unavoidable in these circumstances. Professor van Oostendorp is enthusiastic and entertaining as well as informative. He has recruited two students to assist in presenting the material, both of whom are engaging and useful additions. They provide a natural way to foster dialogues with the professor, presumably in an attempt to capture a sense of the importance of discussion and debate (rather than mere didactism) in academic study and they succeed magnificently in this task. In particular, they pose well-considered and well-phrased questions whose answers prompt epiphanies in understanding.