Spanish vs Hakka Chinese

Sound inventory comparison

Only in Spanish

Shared

Only in Hakka Chinese

Only in Spanish 36

n̪ d̪ ɾ r o ɔ b ʎ ɟ a e æ ɛ ai au ɔi ɛi æi oi ei i̯a i̯ɔ i̯e i̯o u̯a i̯ɛ i̯æ i̯æi i̯ɛi u̯æi u̯ɛi ɡ θ t̪ t̠ʃ x

Shared sounds 9

l u m i ɲ s p f k

Only in Hakka Chinese 38

˥˩ ˦ ˧ ˧˩ ˨ n n̩ ɔ̽ m̩ ʋ j ɹ̩ e̞ ə e̞u iu ä äi äu̽ iäu̽ iɔ̽ i̞ä i̞e̞ u̽i ɔ̽i ŋ tsʰ ts t tʰ pʰ h ç c cʰ kʰ kʷʰ kʷ

What this means for learners

Spanish and Hakka Chinese share 9 sounds — roughly 19% of Hakka Chinese's inventory overlaps with Spanish. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.

The 38 sounds found only in Hakka Chinese represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Spanish 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, Spanish has 36 sounds not used in Hakka Chinese. Native Hakka Chinese speakers learning Spanish 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.

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