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(Taylor) and Kovács (Smith) coming to the school to learn
English, French, Russian. At first, people could only learn the
languages of the victorious powers of the war, and even those
had to please the “developed Russian standards”, as it is
emphasized in typical contemporary licence, which our school
obtained from the authorities.
Later, when “diplomacy” started in the early fifties, and
the first German friendly delegation from the East German
(Soviet) Democratic Republic arrived in Budapest, the
comrades in the ministry realized in terror that the German
language – despite its popularity – was not taught in BudaPest.
The school was ordered to organize efficient German classes in
seven rooms at Eötvös Gimnázium, starting in one week’s time.
They did start. After this, it was inevitably easy to include
Spanish and Italian into the repertoire quickly.
The document published in 1964 was a bit more low-
key, and they quickly came up with a neutral solution: the
school could remain intact, but could not concern with profit, so
a legal form was made up to supervise language school working
communities. To supervise that only one. This document was
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eventually published in Magyar Közlöny, then they withheld
the very possibility of another such private business to launch
until the early ‘80s. That is another story though. State language
schools developed smoothly, enjoying their state funding.
Living Languages Seminar remained to be the champagne.

3 Reference: to keep incognito, Smith and Taylor are very common names, to learn
English could be dangerous at that time
4 Hungarian periodical which contains the accepted bills at the Parliament.

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