The course began with suggestions for best practices regarding time mgmt and module transition. It implied that the course could be completed with a minimum of study two days a week. It is a non-credited introductory course, as most MOOCs are. I like to complete MOOCs in 1/2 the given time if possible, so I planned for 4 days of study and committed for 3 days. I've taken a number of MOOCs over the years. This was the 1st that would be tracking my own use of my time. I soon found out why.

In the 1st hour I followed the projected times given for each individual step and divided the elements by 3 days. I had planned for a couple of hours of study on Sunday for my review before taking the mandatory quiz. That was mistake number one. I ended up spending a fruitless 15 hours on Sunday, unable to locate required reading material that I only found out about, listed near the end of my last day of study in the 1st week.

Leiden University also offered free membership to join the LSA, the Linguistic Society of America, no less, which provided world statistical demographics for the most active languages as well as those that were on their way out, were losing favor or had become extinct. I filled out the application for membership and set it aside until I could evaluate the different tiers of membership. It was clear to me this was probably not a free site for anyone with real academic credentials, so I approached joining the society carefully. That was mistake number two. When I returned to joining it a day or two later I was denied access, stating my free membership had been voided under suspicion of my trying to establish two free memberships. I cannot tell you how funny I found that, given at the time I was reading about Labov and the covert methods he suggested to be used to spy on socially deprived groups in order to best conduct his research.

There's more but it's no longer important. I can't register with the LSA because my degrees come from the University of Massachusetts, the University of Maine and Norwich University in Vermont, and none are listed on the society's application for membership. I ended up on Sunday thinking I was well ahead of the course's requirements, when I ran into the required reading list which also included articles from the BBC's nature programs. Several of their animal and nature series were given as required reading, but on Sunday morning, my last projected day of core studies. I tried signing on and joined, and my BBC subscriptions were confirmed by email, however, I couldn't get past the home page of their three different nature websites or locate either of these stories. I tried thru both You Tube and Spotify where I have held active subscriptions for years. Needless to say, most of the questions on the quiz were from these websites, the LSA site and the BBC sites.

As a last ditch effort I went through Leiden University's MA Linguistics course offerings to decide if it would be worth it to take an online MA, and I couldn't find a single one listed online. They appear to all require residence in the NL. I realize as far as the MOOC goes it's not the end of the world and I can still get past these hiccups, but hey, I'n 78 yrs old. I'm already in the same shute along with those languages which are down to their last speakers. The University of Maine has a Linguistics MA and it's tuition-free for Maine seniors. It's a no brainer.

I thank Leiden U and Prof Marc for introducing me to these disciplines. Good luck fellow students, and peace out.

Andrew Joseph Zanas

There were a lot fo sloppy mistakes in the videos, I looked up a lot fo the stuff up outside of the course (which I had to because it was explained to me on the course like i was a 5 year old) then when i tried to give genuinely thought out answers from my outside readings the course said it was wrong, i don't know who to believe but i have to beieve it is the course because there have been a number of times when a concept hasn't been explained in depth enough and the quiz has not reflected the quizzes. also a lot of the time the outside reading does not reflect the lectures, i did like the informants but this wasn't recapped and none of my errors were corrected before i had to go in to the quiz. You could add more videos after the informants to explain what we should have been looking for. Sometimes the task during this wasn' made explicitly clear. I did like the phonology part, that was fairly traightforward and well explained.

The course and videos are wonderful the speakers are engaging and the content fascinating. As a more casual student I am finding the quizzes far too difficult. I am a very smart person and I am struggling with understanding the phonetic alphabet and other very technical aspects of this course. I will be dropping the course because while I wanted to learn the concepts I do not have the time or patience to get that granular for a course of this type.

Interesting content, but issues with broken links needed to complete quizzes while they were due. Needs better explanation of how to use other resources. Many of the quiz questions are arbitrary, rather than really testing knowledge gained in the class. The lectures are still useful, and would recommend doing this as a free course, but see no use in paying for a certificate on completion of the course.

Most of the reading material and links are no longer available, neither the analysis refered to in the videos, also the website (ethnologue) from which you have to consult information for the test has changed yet the content in the course has not been updated (eg: speakers of Turkish are over a billion acording to ethnologue but in the test the "correct answer" is below this number)

Instructions were confusing or absent in parts of the course. See forum. I also was left with no practical application of what I learned. I enjoyed the studies which showed language changing within cultural divisions

Very slow moving. Feels like you have to sit through a lot for very obvious information. I would recommend http://ielanguages.com/linguistics/ for a more detailed and more concise introduction.

no question that prof is very educated and knowledgeable but course was not quite what i expected.

I find the content not well structure

the quizzes can be trivial and misleading.

Interesting but way too difficult to pass the weekly exams.

As a preface, let me say the areas covered in the class are interesting; I wanted to love this class. However, this must be one of the most poorly planned and executed online courses I’ve come across. Numerous links to required readings, across several weeks of instruction, were completely broken and useless. Nonetheless, test questions continue to cover these readings — this despite the fact these issues were pointed out five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, last year, AND even already this year. Unforgivable. Also, the lectures were fine, but often only vaguely addressed certain issues, or never fully answered even questions they themselves brought up. Quizzes invariably asked for specifics which were never addressed, or never adequately resolved. And the foreign language videos were fascinating, but again, the areas in which we were quizzed would have been far more appropriate after much more in-depth learning than just 30 minutes of video lectures. As an intro-level course, perhaps they just bit off more than they were willing to chew? That alone could be overlooked, but the obviously systemic failures to address problems make me unable to recommend this class to anyone until substantial revisions are undertaken.

I'm a science guy with no background about Linguistics and had expected this course to give me deeper understanding of human language from a point of view that is new to me, but what I found is Linguistic is nothing, no offense, as long as this course tells me. Most of the statements and the questions by the professor was not well-defined and opinionated. At lease I wanted many examples or facts in some organized way when we focus on a specific topic, but this course doesn't contain that feature. I think I am just not the target of this course, but I leave this review to save others like me.

This course seems to be poorly organized and poorly presented. When I read the text, the professor does not use complete sentences, asks intermediate questions before the relevant information is given and then assumes that the International Phonetic Alpabet is known to participants because no explanation of it is given. I studied Comparative Linguistics 30 years ago so the subject is not unknown to me but this presentation is horrible.

The one-star rating is because the required readings are veryinteresting.

Ethnologue under the free access does not provide the info the course requires, nor do any of the required reading links work. So So disappointed. Also Ethnologue does NOT offer an option for the free two months as the course suggests. I am so disappointed in Leiden, I will never take another leiden course. Not the first time, is the last time...

I couldn't complete the course because not all of their required readings were available to the public. When I tried to contact a moderator for help, no one ever responded.

It starts off as an ad for the university. I'd prefer to focus on the content, which should be all linguistics, not uni stats and whatnot.

Course was pretty interesting until I needed to take a test on the first week. This test is incorrect and it destroyed my motivation.

Most items mentioned in the course are not accisible

To difficult to enjoy, unfortunately.