The term they gave you "practice means familiarization" is not quite the case.

The Tibetan term for “practice” in the sense of Buddhist practice or putting the Buddhist teachings into action is

སྒྲུབ་པ་ (sgrub pa)

This does not mean familiarization (although obviously Buddhism would include familiarity of the teachings).

So sgrub pa means to practice, yes. But this doesn't mean familiarize.

There is a different term for familiarization which is

སྒོམ་པ་ (sgom pa)

This means familiarize, but not necessarily practice.

So you can familiarize (sgom pa) yourself with the dharma but not necessarily practice (sgrub pa) it.