Only in Breton 42
What this means for learners
Breton and Lahu share 24 sounds — roughly 36% of Lahu's inventory overlaps with Breton. 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 Lahu represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Breton 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, Breton has 42 sounds not used in Lahu. Native Lahu speakers learning Breton 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.