The beginnings of foreign language education were laid with the foundation of the university as a Higher School of Commerce in 1920.  Among the first lecturers are the distinguished and erudite personalities Ivan Konstantinov - Professor in French, Yanaki Arnaoudov - Professor in German, the famous poet Nikolai Liliev and Dimo Minev, both lecturers in French language.

In 1938 the Institute for Training in Foreign Languages was established with Professor Yanaki Arnaoudov as its Director. Twenty years later the Language Department  was created. In 1983 two divisions were formed in the Department – Western Languages and Slavic languages which in 1991 were differentiated into separate departments.

The Language Department was created on October 13, 2000 by a decision of the Academic Council of the University of Economics - Varna. It consists of two departments - Slavic Languages and Western European languages. The department provides language training at the university and training in business correspondence according to the curriculum of the students of all majors, forms and degrees of training.

The Language Department organizes annual preparatory courses in Bulgarian and English for foreign nationals who intend to continue their education in bachelor degree programme in either Bulgarian or English language.