Entry #7 : Practice makes perfect

Dialogue 1 :
Context  -  Students from my class and I were sitting in the class waiting for the teacher, called Narinée, to arrive. All of them are beginner in French and they are having a hard time with pronunciation.

Student (really confident to say it the right way) : Où est narine ?
Me : What ?
Student : I said ''Où est narine''.
Me (confused) : Well ... they're here (point my nostrils), aren't they?
Student : What ? Narine is in your nose ?
Me : ... I think I didn't understand something ...
Student : I'm asking where is the teacher !
Me : Oh ! (burst into laughter) You mean Narinée !
Student : Yeah, that's what I said.
Me : No, you said 'narine' not 'Narinée'. You were asking where the nostrils were !

And then everybody laughed. It was a really funny situation. Still, it made me realized that mispronouncing a word can lead to big confusion. I'm planning on being careful about that.


Dialogue 2 :
Context  -  A few students and I were sitting in the lounge before the class. We were having an informal conversation about where we live.

Student 1 : I'm not used to live in Montreal. It's so cold here.
Student 2 : I don't think it's that bad.
Student 1 : Dude ! You serious ? We're freezing outside.
Student 2 : Of course you think it's cold, man, you're from Mexico ! You've probably never seen snow of your life, right?
Student 3 : Don't worry, man. You'll get use to it soon.

What proves that this is an informal conversation are the nicknames ''man'' and ''dude'' which you DO NOT USE for a formal conversation. It's really unprofessional and way too familiar.
I use those kind of nicknames all the time, but I realized it is a bad habit. I remember that one time when I almost used ''man'' in a formal conversation with a teacher. I froze when I realized it was really inappropriate and I reformulated my sentence right away.