Only in Avar 35
What this means for learners
Avar and Sesotho share 29 sounds — roughly 45% of Sesotho's inventory overlaps with Avar. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 17 sounds found only in Sesotho represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Avar speakers. The adult brain tends to map unfamiliar sounds onto the closest native equivalent — a process that produces the characteristic "accent" of a second-language speaker. Learning to hear and produce these sounds as distinct requires focused ear training, not just repetition.
Conversely, Avar has 35 sounds not used in Sesotho. Native Sesotho speakers learning Avar will face the mirror-image challenge with these sounds.
Phoneme inventories from PHOIBLE. Data reflects one documented inventory per language; some variation exists across dialects and sources.