This study explored first language (L1) and second language (L2) orthographic effects on L2 phoneme perception. Twenty-five native English learners of Russian (n = 13) and Mandarin (n = 12) partook in an auditory phoneme counting task, employing stimuli organized along two parameters: consistency and homophony. The learners more successfully counted phonemes in L2 words with consistent letter–phoneme correspondences (e.g., всё /fsʲɔ/, three letters/three phonemes) than in words with inconsistent correspondences (e.g., звать /zvatʲ/, five letters/four phonemes), pointing out that L2 phoneme awareness is impacted by L2 orthography and that orthographic effects are not restricted to the L1. In addition, the lack of any L1 homophone effects proposes that L2 orthographic effects overrode any possible L1 orthographic interference for these intermediate-level learners, proposing orthographic effects may be language specific.