What this means for learners
Bardi and Wubuy share 16 sounds — roughly 64% of Wubuy's inventory overlaps with Bardi. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 9 sounds found only in Wubuy represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Bardi 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, Bardi has 9 sounds not used in Wubuy. Native Wubuy speakers learning Bardi 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.