Only in Pwo Karen 33
What this means for learners
Pwo Karen and Kota share 19 sounds — roughly 37% of Kota's inventory overlaps with Pwo Karen. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 22 sounds found only in Kota represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Pwo Karen 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, Pwo Karen has 33 sounds not used in Kota. Native Kota speakers learning Pwo Karen 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.