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

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2,407 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

LR

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I found this course to be not only educational but extremely interesting. It provides a great overview of the field of linguistics and does so in an engaging manner. I highly recommend it!

MC

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Very interesting course, I found the content easy to follow. Some of the questions felt a little abstract in relation to the content, but perhaps that was user error in trying to complete quickly!

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626 - 650 of 734 Reviews for Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics

By Átkýv L

Mar 18, 2022

Overall, I think that this course has definitely lived up to its name. The modules are well-organised, and are taught with comfortable pacing. Perhaps it needs to polish the quality of the videos a little, but other than that, I highly recommend it to people who wish to start their journey on linguistics.

By Paisley G

Aug 9, 2019

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.

By Nora A

Dec 20, 2016

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!

By Jody T

Aug 14, 2017

I have zero background in linguistics, and I found this course interesting and educational. The quizzes however do have some issues such as a couple of wrong or unclear questions as well as arbitrary questions, so be aware that you may have to resort to trial and error in some cases.

By Joe A

Mar 18, 2017

Great introductory course. Helped me a lot to understand what linguists do even if I didn't quite get all the key ideas which weren't all explained in depth enough. The examples from languages are helpful but require quite a good ear so I guess it takes some gift for languages.

By Shivanth M P

Sep 16, 2016

Introductory insight into Linguistics. The professor takes you very briefly about the variety of subdivisions in linguistics , which , each by itself being a big subdivision within linguistics. Enlightened with basics of all these different approaches of investigating languages

By Afonso B

Jan 25, 2022

A good introduction, but quite frankly I could have learned all that was taught in any book about linguistics (that's why I only gave it four stars). On the other hand, I really liked the interviews they did with famous linguists, like prof. Chomsky and prof. Goldberg.

By Carla P

Jun 24, 2020

Muito bom o curso. Mas gostaria que fossem abordados mais curiosidades sobre os idiomas mais conhecidos. Não gostei muito da abordagem em idiomas nada conhecidos ou pouco usados, embora reconheça que a mesma tenha sido necessária para maiores explicações sobre o tema.

By Danni B

Jun 15, 2020

Extremely interesting, videos were entertaining and informative. My only criticism is that the quizzes and final exam seemed to be at a higher difficulty than the course material, and often they were poorly worded or the correct answers didn't seem to be right.

By Casandra H M

Jul 12, 2020

The videos are pretty good, the explanations are easy to understand and I enjoyed the extra material (reading resources). The only thing I would change about this course are the exams, they ask very specific questions and things that may not be that important.

By MO M

May 26, 2019

Good and intense introduction, but difficult multiple choice questions as most answers are deeply rooted in the clips and not in a reading text.

love the free access to Ethnologue and introduction to other linguistic tools such as WALS.

Thanks to the team.

By Aryn H

Aug 20, 2018

This was a very interesting course and introduced me to a lot of interesting concepts and expanded my understanding of the concept of linguistics. I felt some areas could have been explored a bit deeper but overall I enjoyed the course very much.

By Siddharth S

Nov 8, 2016

The course was very interesting and well laid out. The only problems I faced were technical issues during quizzes and forum posts, but the course content itself is excellent and a good starting point for exploring linguistics and human languages.

By Elena A

May 2, 2017

It is a nice course, very well organized for those you are eager to learn about the theoritical aspects of linguistics, such as semantics, morphology. Every video has several quizes, just like every module. I would surely recommend it to anyone.

By Serhii M

Aug 27, 2020

Very interesting and useful course albeit not too deep. It would be great to deepen the covered topics (not to make the course longer!) by adding additional materials for reading and viewing and by making the quizes bigger. Thank you!

By Lucy S

Aug 28, 2017

It's an excellent introduction to linguistics! This course gives learners a general picture of how the field of linguistics look like. Assignments and assessments are of moderate difficulty. Definitely worth taking it!

By Elisabet S

Nov 11, 2016

Sometimes it was hard to understand the concept the professor was trying to make, because some grammatical forms were wrong and therefore the whole concept misleading. Otherwise very interesting course and thank you!

By Ryan P

Jul 3, 2024

An excellent introduction and overview to the various fields of linguistics! My only gripe is that a decent portion of the links are outdated, and definitely would benefit from an update. Nevertheless a great class!

By J. E

Oct 11, 2019

The course is excellent and the videos are very entertaining and engaging. The only problem I had was that the test questions were sometimes confusing and several of their answers could be considered true.

By Yaroslava F

Jun 22, 2017

This was an interesting but challenging course. What I would recommend as an improvements is that the quizzes included comments for wrong answers and suggestions what material to re-read or listen.

By Michelle C

Aug 6, 2024

Very interesting course, I found the content easy to follow. Some of the questions felt a little abstract in relation to the content, but perhaps that was user error in trying to complete quickly!

By Juan A M O

Jun 29, 2020

It is a great course. With truly interesting guests, well organized, with helpful complementary material (Ethnologue and papers). The only thing to fix are some quizzes (specially, the first one).

By Pascal W

Jul 21, 2019

I am essentially learning languages for work or for fun but this course gave me an opportunity to consolidate some knowledge / understanding about languages and across many languages. Excellent!

By Edria M

May 13, 2024

My intention in this course was to learn more about this topic. I achieved this goal. My only suggestion is to check all links to readings and external sites. in some cases these did not work.

By SUZANNE R

Aug 13, 2017

Good introduction to linguistics led by a charming Professor with great enthusiasm for his subject. It was certainly enough to convince me that the study of linguistics is not for me