Portuguese (European) vs Spanish
Sound inventory comparison
Only in Portuguese (European) 23
What this means for learners
Portuguese (European) and Spanish share 24 sounds — roughly 51% of Spanish's inventory overlaps with Portuguese (European). 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 Spanish represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Portuguese (European) 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, Portuguese (European) has 23 sounds not used in Spanish. Native Spanish speakers learning Portuguese (European) 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.