The golden age of foreign-language education in Hungary: 1989–2009

Abstract

Many Hungarians claim that the past two decades have brought us nothing but disappointment. This seems to be a sweeping generalisation, and surely the opposite is true for developments which have taken place in foreign-language education. Although in an European perspective Hungary is still lagging behind, the foreign-language competence of the Hungarian population has dramatically improved since 1989. In the book I am in the process of writing, I give a panoramic view of recent achievements, each chapter highlighting a certain aspect of this upward trend. While the abstract refers to the entire book, the opening chapter focuses on the decades before the fall of the communist regime, but especially on the 80s, when the first signs of cataclysmic changes became visible.