What this means for learners
Kawesqar and Bemba share 15 sounds — roughly 60% of Bemba's inventory overlaps with Kawesqar. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 10 sounds found only in Bemba represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Kawesqar 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, Kawesqar has 9 sounds not used in Bemba. Native Bemba speakers learning Kawesqar 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.