I'm leaving for Stuttgart in two months.The main reason is to visit the famous christmas market.
I'm a bit anxious about the language.Neither me, nor my wife speak no german at all.Do you think this will be a great problem in restaurants,hotels,shops?Thank you very much in advance!

In Germany english is widely spoken, however it's always good to learn a few basic words like "good morning", "thank you", "bye bye" etc. It shows that you did the effort of learning some few words of the local language. Get a conversation dictionary english-german-english, it' will be useful.

As long as you are in the main tourist areas, you'll be able to find someone who speaks English well enough to meet your needs.

Away from the main tourist areas it can be more difficult to find someone who speaks English at all well.

Much depends on what you want to get out of the trip. If your goal is just to buy stuff, eat and drink, and sleep, no problem. If you want to savor any non-touristice aspects (whether food, drink, etc) it would help to know more than a few words & phrases; if you disliked pork, for example, you wouldn't want to order a schweinkotellete. Tourist-oriented restaurants will have an English menu; not so those which cater only to a local clientele.

As English is taught in German schools since more than 50 years, and American troops have been stationed at stuttgart, people there should be able to understand and talk some basic english at least.

It will always be of great help to know some basic words and sentences of the native language of the place you want to visit.

Have a nice trip and enjoy Stuttgart. People there are busy, the town is an economic and administrative center. If you want to see something of the more quiet swabia, visit Tübingen, a quite oittoresque university town not far away from Stuttgart. Students are supposed to know some English, as they hat to learn it for years in school.

We were in Berlin earlier this year and visited several restaurants where English was not spoken. I don't know any German and would have been anxious had my husband not spoken German.

There are a lot of waiter/waitresses in Germany that are from Rumania, Hungary etc who may not know much English. Therefore I recommend a good phrase / dictionary.

You won't really be able to have a 2 way conversation but at least you'll know what your ordering! It can be difficult e.g they don't just call mushrooms Champignon they can call them Pilze, Austernpilze, Pfifferling etc depending on the type of mushroom, the same goes with chicken.

Overall, Germany is one of the easiest places to get around without knowing the language, remember millions of people visit Germany without knowing the language.

Geordie

The easiest place to get around without knowing the language is probably Holland and quite frankly when in Holland, the locals speak English almost universally with hardly any accent whatsoever...Germany is somewhat less able to navigage without knowing the language. Actually it is almost universal now throughout almost all of Europe that English is a 2nd language to most be they from the Netherlands, Sweden, Czech Republic or wherever...after all those McDonald hamburgers are one of the most popular lunch and dinner treats many of them have (meant as a joke BTW for those without a sense of humour)...

But this reminds me of an "incident" I had on a train going from Frankfurt to Paris this past summer. Some member of the staff of DB was doing some sort of survey and he came over to me and spoke to me in German. I said to him, "Sorry I don't speak German." He said to me, "Why not?" I said to him "It's too difficult for me." His response, "That's ridiculous. Seven year old children can learn German." Can't argue with the logic.