One of the hardest things for me about learning Hebrew was that, after hearing my American accent, Israelis didn't always want to speak Hebrew with me.
During the course of my ulpan, I went to an ice cream store. After surveying the flavors, the clerk asked, "What do you want?"
"Chocolate," I responded with pride that I understood her question and could answer in Hebrew.
"Kama?" she asked.
Kama can mean either how many, or how much. I thought she meant how many, while she wanted to know how much.
"One", I responded.
With this she got angry and shouted, "What language do you speak?" since I obviously didn't understand Hebrew.
I had encountered this question before and each time I said I spoke English, but now I wanted to speak Hebrew. However, I didn't have enough confidence to say I spoke only Hebrew.
The solution was to say I spoke a language I was sure she didn't know. She would then be forced to speak Hebrew with me.
"Russian", I replied.
To my relief, she didn't know Russian. To my dismay, she turned to the back room and shouted, "Sarah, come here a moment. This guy is from Russia. Ask him what he wants.
Sarah came out with a big smile and proceeded to speak non-stop Russian for the next twenty seconds.
When she stopped, there was silence expecting my reply. Since my Russian was even worse than my Hebrew, I feebly responded, "I, uh…prefer to speak Hebrew."
I finally exited with my ice cream cone and the resolution that from now on to be an oleh hadash from Norway.