Any sounds in other languages that can't be distinguished in English?

[Aquilla]

@AaronX

I know some languages can’t distinguish “R” and “L”. Or “N” and “L”. I’ve heard Japanese doesn’t distinguish “B” and “V”. As a user of English, I like to think it spans the set of the sounds of all languages (Mathematically, it is a basis for the set of sounds. Or maybe not a basis, since there is some overlap.) Is there any basis to this belief? The only counter I can think of is maybe tones in Chinese.

Actually, some English speakers don’t seem to be able to distinguish “V” and “F”.

Completely anecdotal, but seems relevant to OP. I speak serbian; my boyfriend speaks only english.

He can’t hear a difference between the two kinds of ‘ch’ sound in serbian. The wiki calls them voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate and voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate. (I had a semester of linguistics few years ago and forgot all of it, so that doesn’t mean much to me :D)

Basically, č and ć sound exactly the same to him. I don’t know if this is true of all native-english speakers.

[Leo_Bloom]

Tet and taf in Hebrew.

[hibernicus]

@Aquilla

Basically, č and ć sound exactly the same to him. I don’t know if this is true of all native-english speakers.

It’s true of at least 1 other. See post #91 upthread!