What this means for learners
Bariba and Lak share 14 sounds — roughly 20% of Lak's inventory overlaps with Bariba. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 55 sounds found only in Lak represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Bariba 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, Bariba has 17 sounds not used in Lak. Native Lak speakers learning Bariba 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.