What this means for learners
Komi-Zyrian and Polish share 22 sounds — roughly 59% of Polish's inventory overlaps with Komi-Zyrian. 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 Polish represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Komi-Zyrian 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, Komi-Zyrian has 15 sounds not used in Polish. Native Polish speakers learning Komi-Zyrian 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.