Excuse me, did you order the chicken or the skin?

So, I started my first Czech lessons today, and let me just tell you, this is going to be an uphill battle! I am taking private lessons, but I am considering switching to a class, since my Czech is incredibly remedial. Anyway, my teacher, who's name is Jarda, went through numbers, days, months, and a few phrases with me to get me started. When we got to the part about ordering in a restaurant, he was trying to get me to say "I'd like the chicken." Apparently, I couldn't pronounce it right and was saying "I'd like the skin." And while many Czech menus have interesting items and translations, I'm pretty sure skin isn't on the menu. Which reminds me, last night we went out to meet some of the new teachers with our company. There was a rabbit dish that was translated as featuring "rabbit tight." Not sure what part of the body that comes from! Another teacher told a story about eating at another restaurant and their menu had listed "ground human meat." Needless to say, he didn't try it!

Back to Czech lessons...there are many sounds in the Czech language that are really difficult to pronounce. My favorite is also that many words have very few vowels, so often just looking at the word and thinking of how to pronounce it hurts my head! This is going to be an interesting adventure. I am not aiming to be conversational in Czech, but I would like to be able to order and get around a restaurant and the grocery store a little easier. We shall see how this goes...