I have trouble understanding words also. If I’m standing or sitting talking to one or more people I’m fine but put some distance in between us like some meeting room and I’m out. My Costco’s used with my cell phone “live listen” on the app works pretty good with the phone acting as a microphone in some cases but it doesn’t help with the mumblers and the soft speak ones.. In a church class and other places some people do this low talk thing and nothing helps that. And no I don’t read lips or even try to.
The fast food drive through things are about impossible. The younger generation like to string their words together in a higher chirpy tone when they’re on these speaker things and I have no idea what they are saying and have to rely on someone else in the car to translate. In Huge convention meeting rooms I look for one of the wall speakers and set right under it.