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.
And I absolutely cringe whenever '2' is used for 'to', og '4' for 'for'. Just stop it, they sound nothing alike.
I'm a native english speaker, and I pronounce those the same.
Two = to = too, but "tool" sometimes nearly has 2 "o" sounds, depending. For = four, and the sound in "four" is not the same as in "foul", which is two sounds.
When I was a kid I found it confusing people would confuse there, their and they're – or rather being taught that people confuse them. I'm not sure whether it was due to me being more literate than verbal or not but "they're" at least has always been distinct to me. Maybe it's due to accent changes. I used to pronounce bull and ball the same.
Or better yet: "Luke", "look", and "luck"
And for Spanish speakers there's "Jeep", "sheep" and "cheap"