“Each year, upwards of 1,000 students from 30 to 40 countries study under the guidance of some 50 language teachers, all acknowledged experts of the field of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language. About 1,200 students attended DSS’s courses last year: 500 in Budapest and more than 700 in Debrecen or foreign venues, respectively,” as Director Dr. Péter Szaffkó informed the Internet portal unideb.hu.

Descended from a Hungarian father, Mr. Pierre Veres from Canada is a regular visitor to DSS’s courses.

“My father emigrated to France as a young man. It was there that he met my mother. I was born there but unfortunately I didn’t learn Hungarian. Later, having retired from Air Canada after 30 years of service, I realized that it was my obligation to master Hungarian. I completed my first course at Debrecen Summer School in 2005. I knew only a few Hungarian words then. This year’s course is my twentieth but the first when I’ve come here as a Hungarian citizen. It took a lot of red tape but now I can say that Hungary is officially my second home country,” said Mr. Veres proudly.

International students holding Erasmus Intensive Language Course (EILC) grants have studied Hungarian at DSS for years. This year, 10 students attend the winter course representing Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Italy. They will spend their Erasmus semesters at various Hungarian schools (Corvinus University, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Széchenyi University, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Eötvös Loránd University, and University of Pannonia). Their fields of study range from engineering to law to linguistics among other things.