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I will travel soon to Germany to attend a workshop at a university in Würzburg. The workshop is taught entirely in English. This is my first visit to Germany and I speak very little German.
I was wondering if the officer at the passport control would ask questions only in German? If this was the case, could anyone please tell me what I should do then?
As at most international airports in Europe, all of the passport control officers will speak English. I was there a month ago, speak no German, and had no problem communicating with them.
As soon as you give your passport to the officer, he/she will know whether you are a German citizen or not. If you are a non-EU/EFTA citizen and on the right queue, the officer doesn't need your passport either to start talking in English.
The questions generally include the following topics:
I had about 10 visits to Germany, two of them were to Frankfurt, I have never got a question in German from the officers. Maybe I said "danke" at the end of the conversation, that's all.
Being a German citizen, I can't really speak for travellers coming to Frankfurt from outside the EU. However, most people you will get in touch with at a German airport will be able to communicate in English, at least at a basic level. As others pointed out already, communication with officials may be minimal.
There is an article that describes the experience of arriving at Frankfurt Airport - How to Navigate Customs and Passport Control.
I've been to Germany many times as an exchange student and to visit friends, my experience of Hamburg and Cologne international airports was that they spoke English just fine, I doubt Frankfurt Intl is much different.
Mainland Europe has a substantially better education in foreign languages than England does, as a rule most people you encounter there will speak at least two languages.
I believe it's actually a major factor in being hired at international airports that you speak as many common or uncommon languages as possible, English being a pretty high priority.
If, by some terrible run of bad luck you encounter the one member of passport control who doesn't speak English, their first reaction will be to fetch someone who does.
In short, Don't worry about it. You'll be fine.
What you should definitely be thinking about is your over-land travel arrangements to get from Frankfurt to Würzburg, I recommend compiling some common and emergency phrases on paper.
You'll probably still be fine, but the further east you go in europe the less likely the people you meet are to speak fluent english. Particularly bus-drivers and shop-keepers.
As already answered by others most if not all international airports have an English-speaking staff and especially posts like pass control/customs/immigration/check-in and other directly exposed to various travelers will speak English without any problem. I haven't been in Frankfurt but in Munich that works and that would be very surprising to be any different in other major German airports.
I recommend greeting the person in English when you approach them. This way you clearly signal this is your preferred communication language. I always do that and never have been responded other than in English. This stands not only in the EU but also other major international airports (in my case these were Moscow Sheremetyevo and Kiev Borispol).
As a non-EU resident of Germany, I conversed in English with all the immigration officers I met in different airports of Germany in the last 3 years. They include Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin.
As pointed out by others, this is also the case with many other big cities of Europe. I have had officers who spoke in English in the airports of the following cities: Milan, Naples, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Porto, Sofia, Bucharest and Saint Petersburg.
In Saint Petersburg though, a lady officer struggled to speak certain words and just got a dictionary from somewhere and told me whatever she wanted to convey. So, no worries, they will always figure a way out to make sure the needful is done. Safe trip!
I just came back from Europe.
The only place the officers didn't talk in English as soon as I got to them was in Spain, though they'd probably speak in English if i asked them to.
So i think you'll be ok. At Frankfurt airport, every officer, security and shop i've been, they all spoke very good English.
I travel a lot (maybe 15 times in last 3 years) to Kiev (Ukraine), Sofia (Bulgaria), and sometimes go through Frankfurt and other times Amsterdam. I have never had an issue with English not being spoken even in the two destination airports. Europe is more and more becoming an English-speaking area.
