I just went on vacation to Japan and it was fascinating how much relief even the competent English-speakers there seemed to show when I would speak with them in my semi-fluent (vocab-deficient though) Japanese.

There are translations everywhere, on signs and in museums (those are fascinating because the translations omit 80% of the detail since foreigners will lack historical contextual knowledge) but I got the feeling that with the exception of accommodating tourists, there's never any use for most natives to ever speak English.