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

4.7
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2,356 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.

NI

Mar 10, 2021

The course was well-organised and very interesting. It covered the different aspects of linguistics wonderfully and prompted me to delve further into specific fields of linguistics such as phonetics.

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151 - 175 of 716 Reviews for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

By mica d

Mar 30, 2020

I really appreciated this course! All the lectures are well presented, and it always makes the students think and argue. And also it provides a great insight about linguistic for the ones who come from other scientific areas, such as Computer Science. I certainly recommend it.

By Sandra M

May 20, 2019

This is a high quality course, giving you an overall of linguistics. The material is very good and the professor and the assistants are engaging. There is contribution from speakers of diverse languages and dialects and we can put to use the knowledge acquired in the course.

By Anastasiia L

May 22, 2020

The idea of having language informants is brilliant! Was cool to analyze languages, although for example phonology research where we had go figure our about the "gaps" in the table, I did not understand at all how to do it. The rest was clear and understandable. Great job!

By Birgit S

Apr 26, 2020

Very interesting introduction to the subject! Good variation of formats with lectures, discussions, interviews, lab visit. All who participated in the making of this course show their enthusiasm for their work which is very motivating. The course fulfilled my expectations.

By İpek Z A

Jul 7, 2022

This was an amazing course! It was incredibly well done and extremely informative. I am so glad I have taken this course. The professor is amazing and you can really tell that he deeply cares about his students and that he likes teaching linguistics. I strongly recommend!

By María d J L C V

May 16, 2019

This a real professional course, including at the academic level. It demands a lot of readings but the Instructor's explanations are really clear and easy to understand. There's a lot of linguistic analysis and hands on real practice that you cannot find in other courses.

By Safia J

Apr 14, 2018

I am almost towards the end of this course and honestly, it has been one of the best experience so far. Worth a 6 star!

The professor - sir, you are incredible! Thank you for this wonderful introduction to Linguistics.

I highly recommend this course. It is worth your time.

By Самал А

May 3, 2020

I really enjoyed the course considering that it is a free course. Generally, I was pleased with the content and interviews, also additional reading materials are really interesting. Thank you for your hard work. Looking forward to a more advanced course on linguistics.

By Esmee d B

Sep 13, 2020

Excellent introduction into linguistics. Touches upon the basics of the most common approaches to linguistics, clear videos, good informants where you're challenged to apply your skill. It was my first course so I can't compare but I suspect the bar has been set high.

By Doron V

Jun 16, 2016

Excellent and most enjoyable course!

The videos of the professor and his students are clear and fluent and even the quiz are not too hard.

And the best part are the informants in various languages one does not encounter every day.

The course is mostly recommended to all.

By Ayala R

Feb 7, 2021

Great cours! Very good way for introducing to the field of linguistic and to this real miracles of human languages. Language is a tool that we are using every day and this course give an opportunity to observe and to think about it and knowing ourselves a bit more.

By Jessica R

Sep 8, 2017

Professor Marc van Oostendorp is a wonderful teacher. You can see he loves his subject and finds joy in it, and he enjoys transmitting his knowledge to others. It was a good rhythm to have the in and out flow of Martin and Inge as well. I really enjoyed this course.

By Mrinalini P

Jun 20, 2016

Despite some technical difficulties with the forum and the quiz, the actual course was so AMAZINGLY interesting that it has motivated me to take up linguistics in the future. I didn't lose interest even once for the entirety of the six weeks I spent on this course!

By Moeko R

May 24, 2020

Very good course; would recommend to anyone who is interested in learning a little about linguistics. It is the perfect level for an introductory course, not too difficult, but very informative and covered many topics and featured many interesting guest speakers.

By 姜徐宁

May 31, 2017

Extremely pleasant experience gotten in the course, I think it's worth trying for anyone who has the slightest related or direct interest in Linguistics. This reveals some facts of common concerns in my opinion. Reasonable setting of sections as a guiding course.

By Aline M d O F

Jul 21, 2019

The course is really interesting, I highly appreciated the lectures, reference materials and the instructor. I would only point out the some of the exercises are way to difficult (only the ones related to the IPA and comparison of sounds in different languages).

By Chris M

Apr 1, 2018

Very enjoyable, but also filled with a lot of in depth information! I learned a lot and found the instructors' presentation style to be very conducive to learning the concepts well and to keep my interest throughout the 6 weeks. I would take a follow up class.

By Ashlesha G

Sep 11, 2020

very good learning material and presentation. It really helped me to get the introduction of linguistics. I would like to take more advanced courses on this subject from the same university. Please consider putting intermediate and advanced level courses too.

By Wanderer S

Jun 30, 2020

This is my first course on Coursera. I always wanted to learn about different languages. This course is designed so well and the videos and study material provided are excellent. I thank the whole team for this excellent course. I really enjoyed this course.

By Randall A B I

Jun 29, 2020

A great introduction to various aspects of the vast field of linguistics. The professor is very enthusiastic and the professional interviews are quite interesting and informative. Additionally, you get to study diverse languages spoken by native informants!

By Niloufar S

Sep 15, 2017

I recommend this MOOC to all fans of linguistics, learning languages, and people who are interested in deeper understanding of what is indeed "a Language"! Special thanks to prof. dr. Oostendorp for his clear and kind way of transferring his vast knowledge.

By Max W

Jun 19, 2019

An excellent well-rounded introduction to the field of linguistics. The students gets to learn about language in many facets, with a perfect mix of informational lectures, video discussions, and self-guided learning. Wonderful professor and great material!

By Fotios C

Sep 11, 2019

Fantastic insight into the world of linguistics! Very high quality course. Professor van Oostendorp creates an atmosphere that makes learning fun. If you have an interest in evolution of languages and in etymology, this is the course you should take!

By Maryam H

Jan 4, 2023

It was such a great course for me, I learned a lot from it. I just finished it last night and already missed professor Oostendorp and his two students. I wished there were more courses by them and I look for him to another amazing linguistic course.

By Becka I

Dec 31, 2021

This is a well organised and comprehensive introduction to linguistics. I took this course wanting to find out whether I would enjoy studying linguistics formally, it has been incredibly useful in that regard. I would love to see this MOOC extended