This is an English translation of the one-minute story 'Prestige', which was adapted from the original by István Örkény. The Hungarian and English texts can be used on their own or with the material entitled 'Why study Hungarian?', especially part 2.

This material is based on a presentation co-authored with Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi for the conference 'Language Futures: Languages in Higher Education Conference 2012' held in Edinburgh on 5 and 6 July 2012.

WHY STUDY HUNGARIAN? AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND CULTURE FOR BEGINNERS AND MORE ADVANCED LEARNERS This work sheet is divided into four different levels and four parts. Before starting to work on either of them, learners should listen to the following video recording, in which two students explain why they decided to learn Hungarian at university and what their understanding of the language is like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHYR7vLVUmY The other key source for this work sheet is a short story by István Örkény by whom one of the students in the video recording reads a short prose piece Fűre lépni tilos ‘It is forbidden to step on the grass’. If you want to study this piece, you can go to the Language Box material ‘Why study Hungarian_Part 1’. Students can find the new text and its English translation, as well as two different (a slower and a faster) audio recordings of the text on Language Box under the link to materials entitled ‘Why Hungarian_Prestige’ (slow and fast readings).