What this means for learners
Lingala and Makassar share 18 sounds — roughly 78% of Makassar's inventory overlaps with Lingala. 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 Makassar represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Lingala 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, Lingala has 4 sounds not used in Makassar. Native Makassar speakers learning Lingala 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.