By 'non-English speaker' do you mean 'someone with English as a second language', 'someone not speaking English', or 'someone not from England'?

I'm a non-native English speaker, and certainly has no problem distinguishing between your examples; in fact I use such words as illustration when explaining subtleties of Danish pronunciation to anglophones.

And I absolutely cringe whenever '2' is used for 'to', og '4' for 'for'. Just stop it, they sound nothing alike.