As an example, the last name of actor Jake Gyllenhaal, written ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl in the IPA, might be written jil-ən-hl in a phonemic system and jill-in-hall in a non-phonemic system.
You might be able to pronounce ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl but would a non-linguist even have a clue? Nope.
Depending on whether the non-linguist bothered to put a little effort into studying IPA. Sometimes you'll find that a little effort has big returns. I'm not a linguist. I'm interested in linguistics and I know a little about it but I'm not a linguist. My knowledge of IPA is not the greatest, but I do know that it is one of the better systems around for representing sounds of words. Some of the problem is in how the sound that a specific IPA symbol represents is presented. To say that ʃ is a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative isn't going to be much help to someone who isn't a trained professional phonologist, but a little bit of research will find web sites with sound files.
