I keep running into people around the Internet who say "many" or "most" Japanese people speak English. This has not been my experience at all, so I've started asking why they have this belief. But it's got me thinking, how many Japanese speak English?

I'm not talking about native-like fluency necessarily, although I'd be curious about that too. But how many Japanese can get by with a basic conversation? There are eikaiwa everywhere of course, and it's taught somewhat in schools (hi ALTs!), so I guess that might be why people assume so many speak it...but how many really? 25%, 35%, 50%? I can't imagine it's over 50% or I wouldn't be running into "sorry, no English" so much.

Edit: I realize it's possible people are just afraid to talk to me. Maybe people are able to carry on a conversation, they just don't want to try. But it seems more like people really don't speak enough English for any conversation at all.