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What was said about France was true ! it is not that no-one speaks english in France, we just have the feeling it is rude not even to make an effort to communicate in the local language.
I think it is overtly naive to expect to learn something so fundamentally japanese as kendo purelly in english. just as it would be naive to expect to learn baseball in Europe without learning English (why we would do that is beyond me, but let's assume it for the sake of the example. ). it is true that English is becoming a de-facto vehicular language worldwide, nevertheless, the fact that some english speakers realise is that is complements but does not replace the other languages, and that to explore the culture of a given country and talk to the "locals", you'll still need other languages...
Don't get me wrong, i am the first one to wish that all these wonderfull kendo books were available in English and that all the sensei could communicate their wisdome to us more widelly (although in French would be even better of course...). But since it is not possible, we'll have to learn Japanese to accomodate the senseis and not the other way around, I'm afraid.
Antonin