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

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2,423 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 739 Reviews for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

By Roberta R

Nov 3, 2018

The lectures are extremely easy to follow even for somebody who has never heard of linguistics before. The required readings and suggested bibliography were extremely interesting and will give me something to work on even now that I have completed the course. Thanks for creating this great course!

By Dilan K

Oct 12, 2021

with Prof. Marc van Oostendorp and his team, it has been incredibly efficient and useful course. We were never bored following the lessons and learned all the details of the language science in a summary way in 6 weeks. In addition, quizzes also became part of the teaching process. Thank you...

By Cecilia A

Jun 20, 2020

Really interesting material! Sometimes i found the quiz questions about the language informants really difficult to answer, likely because I didn't speak any of those languages. But the professor and his assistants were really great-- knowledgeable and easy to listen to. I really enjoyed this!

By Maerfuha

Oct 31, 2020

I like this course very much. This course is very interesting. The examples given are also very detailed. In the examples, the speakers are native speakers, which makes me feel very good. The content of the lecture is very substantial, the course schedule is very compact but very interesting.

By Adam F

Jun 15, 2018

I though that the lay out of the course was engaging and interesting. Though, it wasn't easy at the same time and really challenged me to think in a completely different manner to the way that I usually do. Thank you very much for the assistance I needed to find something I want to pursue.

By Fawad K

Jun 17, 2022

The course was completed successfully. It was an enthralling course in which I learned a lot. The course covers almost every aspect of linguistics. I highly suggest it to everyone interested in linguistics, especially multidisciplinary persons who want to learn more about the subject.

By Vishruti D

Jul 29, 2020

SPLENDID JOB! Great course, gives the sound knowledge about Introduction to Linguistics and about many different languages in the world! Really enjoyed every bit of it and gained so much knowledge out of it! The way of teaching is very easygoing and fun, Kudos to the Prof and team!

By Yang W

May 17, 2019

Good organization; Detailed analysis; Well-designed assignments and reasonable methodology for teaching, which is easy to follow, made This course an excellent one for beginners in linguistics. Thanks to Professor and All the volunteers' help offered in This course. Great Thanks!

By MIGUEL M

Jan 1, 2019

This Course is a real Miracle. The way is conducted, the material that is assigned could not be better. The inclusion of Native Speakers of different languages, as well as the participation of the Students : Inge and Marten made me feel as one more of them. Thank You very Much

By Yuliia H

Oct 18, 2022

I am grateful for this opportunity to participate in this course. Especially I want to tell thank you to professor and Martin and Inge and everyone who spent his/her time for us to know more and to revise old information in sphere of linguistics. Thank you! May God bless you!

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 Jiang X

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.