Only in Páez 33
What this means for learners
Páez and Hakka Chinese share 16 sounds — roughly 33% of Hakka Chinese's inventory overlaps with Páez. 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 Hakka Chinese represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Páez 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, Páez has 33 sounds not used in Hakka Chinese. Native Hakka Chinese speakers learning Páez 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.