Only in Mazahua 41
What this means for learners
Mazahua and Lahu share 22 sounds — roughly 35% of Lahu's inventory overlaps with Mazahua. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 24 sounds found only in Lahu represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Mazahua 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, Mazahua has 41 sounds not used in Lahu. Native Lahu speakers learning Mazahua 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.