Shared sounds 40
What this means for learners
Kannada and Sanskrit share 40 sounds — roughly 85% of Sanskrit's inventory overlaps with Kannada. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 5 sounds found only in Sanskrit represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Kannada 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, Kannada has 7 sounds not used in Sanskrit. Native Sanskrit speakers learning Kannada 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.