[mike50]

French is widely spoken throughout the world. If you speak French you can travel to Canada, the Caribbean, Africa and parts of South America without needing to speak another language. Also French is an official language in Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg as well as being widely spoken and taught as a second language in contentental Europe. Japan is spoken mostly in Japan and expat communities.

[SpecialistK]

You're right that the simile starts falling apart when you look at it deeper, but on the whole I think it does provide a reasonable example: when you can experience international travel and business opportunities in your mother tongue it is less appealing and more difficult to learn another language. And this is what we see from French-speakers vs Finnish-speakers. Yes, French is much more global than Japanese is, but the end result is the same: if you speak French or Japanese, there are many more economic, cultural, and travel opportunities available without needing to learn a L2 than if you speak Finnish or Dutch or Hungarian. That's part of speaking a language with 100+ million speakers compared to 5 million speakers.

[lmm]

Ok, but what difference does that make in practice? Japanese people do not feel any compelling need to go outside Japan (many do not have passports) - they go on holiday within Japan (which has ski resorts, tropical islands, and everything in between) and consume entertainment in Japanese. I suspect many French people would still content speaking only French even if it wasn't spoken outside France, for the same reasons.

[numpad0]

The "addressable market" compares. Combined total of French speakers is estimated to be ~160m, against Japanese population of ~120m.

[shiroiushi]

I think you're greatly overstating the usefulness of French; I've noticed that French-speaking people seem to have this misconception about the importance of their language, not grasping that it's no longer the late 1800s or early 1900s. French is only widely spoken in former French colonies, which are all generally economic backwaters (which probably has a lot to do with how poorly France treated its colonies). I'm not aware of any significant parts of South America where you can speak French, outside French Guyana: anywhere else, and you need to speak Spanish or Portuguese, though you might be able to get by with English just due to its popularity as an international language (which French is not).

French might be "official" in Belgium and Switzerland, but that's about as useful as it also being "official" in Canada. Good luck speaking French to people in British Columbia or Alberta; only people in Quebec speak it. The same is largely true in Belgium or Switzerland: go outside the French-speaking area and you're going to have trouble. Luxembourg is a micronation.