What this means for learners
Lue and Bhumij share 23 sounds — roughly 43% of Bhumij's inventory overlaps with Lue. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 31 sounds found only in Bhumij represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Lue 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, Lue has 16 sounds not used in Bhumij. Native Bhumij speakers learning Lue 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.