Only in Kimeru 1
What this means for learners
Kinyarwanda and Kimeru share 26 sounds — roughly 53% of Kimeru's inventory overlaps with Kinyarwanda. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 1 sound found only in Kimeru represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Kinyarwanda 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, Kinyarwanda has 23 sounds not used in Kimeru. Native Kimeru speakers learning Kinyarwanda 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.