if you're new to maya may i suggest you look at maya's tutorials first.
that way you'll get a basic idea of the UI (user interface) elements and you wont be so lost

i'm not sure but i think all the free tutorials are using an older version of maya, like 6.5

and in that version menu names are different and some menus are rearranged differently and some menu options have completely vanished and merged with others for a good cause (eg, extrude is just a single command, there's no more extrude vertex/face/edge), and some new menu options are around like duplicate special

but yeah, the tutorials that came with maya are current to the version of maya you're using, so you should look at those first.