Bumping Into the Language Barrier

Each one of us, I'm sure, has heard a student of the English language, hilariously, or shockingly, misuse or mipronounce his words. In any event, we have either laughed out loud or have snickered silently. Maggie and I found ourselves in just such a hilarious situation, only this time we were the cause of the snickers.
This particular Sunday afternoon found us at the Stop Market in downtown Herzliyya, perusing the shelves in search of our weekly groceries. One item on our list was a whole chicken, so we headed over to the meat counter, eager for the opportunity to practice our Hebrew. (Chicken in Hebrew is "oaf").
"Ani(I) rotsah(want) achat(one) ahf(nose), bavakasha(please)," Each deliberate word sailed proudly across to the butcher's ears. A pointed finger indicating what we were really after kept him from staring at us stupidly.
"Lo(no)," he corrected us graciously. "Ani(I) rotsah(want) oaf(chicken) gadole(big)." We noticed that a new word had been added and reiterated it eagerly.
"Ani(I) rotsah(want) achat(one) ahf(nose) gadole(big)."
"Lo(no) need achat(one)," he explained patiently. "The word chicken singular already."
Confident of getting it right this time, we tried again. "Ani(I) rotsah(want) ahf(nose) gadole(big)."
"Oaf(chicken)," he smiled as he pointed at the chickens. "Ahf(nose)," he laid his finger on his nose, which was itself quite gadole!
Amazingly, we left the Stop Market that day with a large chicken instead of the large nose that we so adamantly said we wanted. We also took with us a good laugh at our mixup, greater sympathy and sensitivity for those studying a foreign language, and thankfulness for the patient, thickskinned butcher who understood our mistake as the confusion of two Hebrew students and not as a criticism of his most predominate feature.