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

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.

I have enjoyed this course although being a somewhat deaf beginner I found the modules on the sounds of, and the mechanics of making, consonants along with the videos of the informants, somewhat frustrating.

. Plus I really struggled with Module 6 and Politeness Theory and am not totally sure that it actually added anything to the course, at least for me.

I read a number of reviews before I started this course, in which people were complaining about the quizzes and although some of the questions were relatively easy, they were not all just about ticking boxes, but actually reading and understanding the intent of the questions. I was a beginner with little previous studied knowledge of the subject.

The Professor was enthusiastic and engaging.

Thank you

Probably the #1 online course for anyone looking to understand the basics of linguistics. Dr. Oostendorp explains many of the topics very well, and his 2 student guests asked a lot of thought-provoking questions during the discussion lectures. Also, I feel like the weekly assessments were difficult enough to promote strong recall and understanding of the week's information, but also not disproportionately hard. On a personal note, this course let me look at all the subfields within linguistics and decide what I was most interested in so I could find further resources and continue enjoying learning. However, I'm only giving a 4 star(probably closer to a 4.5) since i feel like certain topics could've been talked about more, like syntax and syntax trees.

I liked the couse a lot, but I think the quizzes are very tricky and there are questions that you have to deduce more than to know. This is OK as part of learning, but it turns a little difficult when English is not your first language. Also, there were some errors in the quizzes, especially in week 3 and 4. It's very interesting to listen to the informants, but I find difficult to answer the questions about them. I'm not familiar with those languages and it's very hard, and I think that's not the point of the course, like to know how to say "grandma" in Abruzzese or how many ways there are to say "son" in Chinese. So, it may be taken into consideration. Anyways, I really liked the course and I hope it can grow for the best. Thank you!

This is the first course I did with Coursera, and I chose it for curiosity and for general interest in languages. Also, it is still COVID-19 pandemic time, and I want to do something besides working from home.

I did enjoy the course. I completed it, but I am not doing the final assignment and the peer review.

I had fun taking the test more than once to pass the course, but it bothered me not to finding the right answer for the questions, even if I tried different options. I would like to have access to the right answer to understand why I did not get it right.

I appreciated to have the transcript of each course as well.

Thanks

Thanks,

I really enjoyed the content of this course. It really was a fascinating introduction and I feel I have learnt so much. It has made me hungry to learn more in some ways but less in others (as I found some parts quite technical and tricky but felt proud when I finally worked out the answers!). The Professor is very personable and the lectures are well presented. I did not personally have time to do the Peer assessments but would have liked to. Thank you to all involved. i chose this course as it interested me but it was by chance from Leiden university which is where I live. I felt more connected somehow.

This was a very informative introduction into linguistics. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, but the topics where are relevant and challenging. Because of the limited time a course offers, I do think the course lacks some coherence between topics.

I would've liked more exercises of analyzing language of the informants. That was good practice and I learned a lot from it.

I also would like to do the peer assignments, but I missed some more interaction between other participants to do so.

All things considered this was time well spent and I would love to learn more about linguistics after this.

Professor van Oostendorp was a big plus and asset to this course. I would have really liked to have him as a professor at the Uni. I'm not giving 5 stars because I believe the estimated workload (in terms of time) for the mandatory reading material is at times vastly underestimated (like with the article on typology in module 1 and the audio lecture in module 6, for instance). Additionally, the way the forum is now, it is basically impossible to keep track of your own contributions and others' replies, which fatally undermines interaction between course participants.

Great introductory course for anyone who doesn't know anything about linguistics but has an affinity for languages. Well presented, well structured, interesting throughout. I have two suggestions for the people running this course: 1) The explanation of Grice's Maxims in the context of linguistics was cursory at best. It was mentioned only in a short exchange, yet there were questions on it in the quizzes. 2) It would be nice if students could have access to the correct answers to the quizzes, obviously being impeded to resubmit them after having seen them.

I think this course was very interesting, and quite frankly it would deserve a 4.5 stars rating. My only (light) remark would be that I would have hoped more details on the research studies the teacher presents. It's only at the very end, in the society and linguistics part that we get to see some detailed results from an academic study. Also, I would have liked more on historical linguistics, but I know that was not part of the initial curriculum. Overall, kudos to Leiden University's linguistic team, this was a great course.

The course is a lightweight introduction to Linguistics. If you are absolutely new to linguistics, it will provide you with enough information for further research and self-development. There are some really interesting facts provided by the required reading of the course.

What I mostly liked about the course is the list of additional literature. What I mostly didn't like are quizzes - I little bit too reliant on the question formulation. The only quiz that I really liked was about syntactic analysis of informants' sentences.

I appreciate that the videos were intentionally taken at close range and they have transcriptions that I can read when I am losing my focus. I learned so much from this course and it has inspired me to further analyze and understand my own languages and my own culture. The quizzes are challenging but that is how to make tests! I am inspired to formulate quizzes about my mother tongue following Coursera's pattern. Thank you!

I really enjoyed the course and learnt a lot; I particular appreciated it as it helped me understand more of the issues I faced when learning languages. I particular enjoyed the prcatical aspect, not the theorectical so much: I was completely baffled by the section on "face" and would have appreciated a fuller explanation & more examples. The course videos were well made and engaging.

Thank you for a great course!

It was an excellent course with lots of essential information. However, I wished the information in the interviews was more structured, as it was taken into account that few of us are actual beginners in linguistics. Also, I wish the tests did not use questions involving memorising examples by language informants said, because not only is it another language, there are many examples from 6 different languages.

This course does a decent job of covering the main pillars of linguistics and puts the theories into practice by giving us a chance to apply our learnings of each module to real-life languages, and it even includes native speakers of those languages.If you're new to linguistics or want to brush up on your previous learnings, this course is definitely a great supplementary resource.

A great course, it contains very broad discussion of the problems of linguistics.

Quite demanding quizes force students to watch videos carefully and to read the required reading. This leads to better understanding of the matter.

The videos in the course are great too, the explanation of prof. Oostendorp is very lively and entertaining. The interviews with specialists are unique.

I think that the course was a great introduction to Linguistics, the world of languages. I very much enjoyed all the lectures and especially the interviews of the different Languages Specialists.

The Questions in the exams were not that easy. I would have liked to get real feedback and the correct answers to all the questions.

Thank you for the possibility to study online!

Excellent course, though I found it difficult. The exercises that required listening to students speaking different languages were particularly hard for me, probably because I speak only English and my ear is poor. Nevertheless, I persevered and feel I got a great deal from the course. I would like to take the next course in the sequence, if there were one.

really good and interesting, the quizzes (especailly the final one) were a bit irritating when you had to keep flicking back to previous videos on the same page (the language informants); I felt that the final quiz should have been exclusively what has been lerned rather than going back to langauge informant videos. But otherwise, a fantastic free resource.

An excellent course providing a strong basis in the technical areas of linguistics, particulary useful when you have prior nowledge in a cognitive science.

Nonetheless, some questions of the test tend to be a bit confusing and would benefit from a little revision - but the tests remain doable!

A very interesting course, completely worth your time.

This course provides a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to linguistics, including a wide range of topics, such as syntax, semantics, morphology, and psycholinguistics. The theories are explained in a very clear manner, and the different interviews enlighten the learner and inspire him to pursue linguistics with ever greater passion.

Firstly, I'd like to thank the professor for bringing us such a great class on linguistics! The course gives a general introduction on what linguistics is about in quite a balanced depth, not too deep to scare people away while not too shallow that you may feel boring. The missing star is due to some vague instructions of quizzes.

I learned very much in this course, and I am thankful for the opportunity to have taken it. I found some of the quiz questions to be unnecessarily difficult because of how specific they were to the videos of the language informants, but overall, I enjoyed the course and the wide range of supplemental materials that are offered.

Great course. Even though it says An Introduction... I found it demanding.

By the way, when I started the course it was possible to see the number of hours a week needed to complete the course (3 - 4 hours) on the course description. However, now it's not possible and I need this important information a.s.a.p.

Thank you!

Overall, I enjoyed taking this course. It was challenging, but it helped me to develop my skills in reading journal articles and assessing university level material. It had interesting case studies and gave me a good grounding in the field of linguistics. Thanks University of Leiden and Dr. Marc van Oostendorp!