What this means for learners
MBA-NE and Fɔn share 19 sounds — roughly 45% of Fɔn's inventory overlaps with MBA-NE. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 23 sounds found only in Fɔn represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for MBA-NE 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, MBA-NE has 12 sounds not used in Fɔn. Native Fɔn speakers learning MBA-NE 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.