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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

There was a lot of interesting information in this course, and I liked the interviews and guest speakers of other languages. If I could change anything, it would be the wording on some of the quiz questions, and the difficulty of a beginner course asking for some of the analysis with the guest speakers.

A nice refresher for people who already have a linguistic background, and a nice introduction for beginners also. My problem was all the weird questions about the informants. Some of the questions are really hard to understand which makes them impossible to answer. I'm glad I took the course though!