Japanese, of course. Hmong is written with latin characters, japanese has 3 different writing systems, is vague in its spoken manner, has word order that is distorted from an english speakers perspective. But its much more useful than hmong which word order is like english.
For an English speaker, Hmong will be more difficult. Hmong is actually not a single language, but about 6-10 closely related ones with differences in their sounds and grammar. The typical Hmong language has 2-3 dozen different consonant sounds, many of which are not found in English. Hmong languages are also tone languages (like the Chinese languages), which English speakers also find difficult. It will also be harder to find people to talk Hmong with unless you live in certain specific areas (such as Los Angeles). There are also few Hmong resources that you can use to learn the language. Japanese word formation is harder and Japanese writing is harder to learn, but the sound system contains no sounds that are not found in English (even the way u is pronounced is found in Western US dialects) and there are no tones in Japanese. You will also find it easier to find Japanese speakers to practice with. Both languages have things which will be hard to master. Pick your poison.
I'd say Hmong, at least for Westerners. Japanese at least has some similarities to Western language with Katakana and some of their words are also based off of English pronounciations. Hmong is pretty much completely foreign to most Western languages.
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
Japanese, of course. Hmong is written with latin characters, japanese has 3 different writing systems, is vague in its spoken manner, has word order that is distorted from an english speakers perspective. But its much more useful than hmong which word order is like english.
For an English speaker, Hmong will be more difficult. Hmong is actually not a single language, but about 6-10 closely related ones with differences in their sounds and grammar. The typical Hmong language has 2-3 dozen different consonant sounds, many of which are not found in English. Hmong languages are also tone languages (like the Chinese languages), which English speakers also find difficult. It will also be harder to find people to talk Hmong with unless you live in certain specific areas (such as Los Angeles). There are also few Hmong resources that you can use to learn the language. Japanese word formation is harder and Japanese writing is harder to learn, but the sound system contains no sounds that are not found in English (even the way u is pronounced is found in Western US dialects) and there are no tones in Japanese. You will also find it easier to find Japanese speakers to practice with. Both languages have things which will be hard to master. Pick your poison.
I'd say Hmong, at least for Westerners. Japanese at least has some similarities to Western language with Katakana and some of their words are also based off of English pronounciations. Hmong is pretty much completely foreign to most Western languages.
hmong
hmong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_language
i cant even pronounce the second one!