Lithuanian vs Ukrainian
Sound inventory comparison
Only in Lithuanian 32
What this means for learners
Lithuanian and Ukrainian share 28 sounds — roughly 47% of Ukrainian's inventory overlaps with Lithuanian. 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 Ukrainian represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Lithuanian 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, Lithuanian has 32 sounds not used in Ukrainian. Native Ukrainian speakers learning Lithuanian 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.