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I'm wondering if there's an idiom similar to an idiom in Czech. In Czech, it's 'Vylámat si na něčem zuby' ~ 'To break one's teeth on something'.
To try and do something but failing nonetheless. It's almost always used after the fact, but it can be used as a warning too.
'He tried to untighten the screw and spent all day on it and still nothing. He broke his teeth on it.'
Are you looking for bite off more than you can chew?
To try to do something that is too difficult for you:
We bit off more than we could chew in our original reform proposals.
[Cambridge Dictionary]
