What this means for learners
Epena and Dafla share 12 sounds — roughly 32% of Dafla's inventory overlaps with Epena. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 15 sounds found only in Dafla represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Epena 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, Epena has 26 sounds not used in Dafla. Native Dafla speakers learning Epena 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.