Only in Tigrinya 53
What this means for learners
Tigrinya and Garo share 13 sounds — roughly 20% of Garo's inventory overlaps with Tigrinya. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 13 sounds found only in Garo represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Tigrinya 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, Tigrinya has 53 sounds not used in Garo. Native Garo speakers learning Tigrinya 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.