Only in Páez 31
What this means for learners
Páez and Karen share 18 sounds — roughly 37% of Karen'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 21 sounds found only in Karen 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 31 sounds not used in Karen. Native Karen 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.