What this means for learners
KOTOKO and Hiligaynon share 20 sounds — roughly 56% of Hiligaynon's inventory overlaps with KOTOKO. 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 Hiligaynon represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for KOTOKO 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, KOTOKO has 16 sounds not used in Hiligaynon. Native Hiligaynon speakers learning KOTOKO 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.