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.
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.