What this means for learners
Kawesqar and Garo share 9 sounds — roughly 35% of Garo'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 17 sounds found only in Garo 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 15 sounds not used in Garo. Native Garo 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.