Only in Bengali 53
What this means for learners
Bengali and Kota share 19 sounds — roughly 26% of Kota's inventory overlaps with Bengali. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 22 sounds found only in Kota represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Bengali 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, Bengali has 53 sounds not used in Kota. Native Kota speakers learning Bengali 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.