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Before I travelled to Japan I was told everyone knew English and that I would be fine. When I got to Japan I released straight away this wasn’t the case.
Most people in Japan learn English at school, but not many people take it further as I have been told that it’s not a major interest. The Japanese learn American English, so if you have a none “American” English accent such as myself, you will need to use a few “American” English words and also speak slower for most Japanese people to understand . As long as you remember this, if your stuck then you will be fine.
The Japanese are a nice mix of people, I noticed they seem a bit shy, but the people in Osaka seemed a bit less shy then the people In Tokyo. It’s pretty rude to stare at others in Japan, I like to look around but whenever anyone made eye contact they always looked away pretty quickly.
If you need directions, the Japanese are so helpful. I wanted to get to the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka. When I arrived at Umeda I was pretty lost, I could see the ferris wheel but the directions on my map didn’t help too much. I stopped a young business man in his tracks, asking for directions I thought he would only point me in the directions but he actually took me all the way to the observatory which was 15 minutes walk and then walked back. I didn’t expect this at all!
The same happened in Kyoto when I wanted to go to the Fushimi nara shrine and my map didn’t help too much either as it didn’t show how far away the shrine actually was. I asked a young man for directions and he took me pretty much to the train station and pointed me on my way.
If you would like to meet up with Japanese who speak English there are plenty of international partys in Japan. I went to one in Harajuku and met plenty of people working in Japan and also some nice Japanese girls 
.
I managed to meet up with a few who showed me around Tokyo, so they are worth going to as they can help you see some places you wouldn’t normally be able to see.
I highly recommend the Tokyo Free Guide, I guess there are other tour guides in Japan but these are one to one and you only pay for their expenses such as travel and food.
If you want to go out round Tokyo it is pretty safe, I guess Osaka and large places in Japan will be good for none Japanese speaking people to go. I didn’t go out much, but if you want a home away home I would go to Roppongi, most people speak English here although the prices are high and i’ve heard there are lots of fights. Kabukicho in Shinjuku is pretty popular, Kabukicho is the red light district in Tokyo and has lots of small streets with small bars/places to eat around it. I heard that if you go to Kabukicho or Roppongi their are a lot of host/hostess clubs where they will try rinse your credit card, so be careful and watch where you go.
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