> Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand This has changed in recent years. At least in the prefecture I live

> Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand This has changed in recent years. At least in the prefecture I live in (Aichi), and where I've traveled outside Tokyo, people just start talking to me in Japanese. 15 years ago, when I lived in Japan for 15 months, it would happen that they'd first try English or I'd feel they were hesitant to speak Japanese to me (but still did). But since I moved to Japan again 5 years ago, nothing of the sort. They start in Japanese without batting an eye. I think that's because there are way more foreigners living here than there used to, and they tend to talk Japanese. And in non touristy places, there are probably more foreigners who speak Japanese than not.