Lesson Plan: Proper Nouns & Proper Adjectives (Religions)

Ron Grove

PP104

October 2005

 

level:             advanced (academic preparation)

time:             (online) depends on learner

aims:             to introduce and practice names of religions and their associated proper adjectives--In my experience, these words are seldom used consistently by Japanese college students. The equivalent terms in Japanese being much simpler to form, remember, and use. Japanese learners often produce utterances like "I am Buddha but you are Christ" or "Why does Islam hate Jewish?"

procedure:    This is intended as an online self-study unit. The materials follow.

 

 

Proper Nouns & Proper Adjectives: Religions

 

In English, you have to learn several different words to talk about countries, their people, etc. This is more complicated than Japanese, as in the example below.

 

日本語

English

スペイン

Spain

スペイン語

Spanish (language)

スペイン人

Spaniard(s)/Spanish (person/people)

スペインの

Spanish/Spain's/of Spain

 

The same challenge exists in speaking about religions. Like words for nations and nationalities, names of religions and the adjectives taken from them are proper nouns and proper adjectives, so they always begin with a capital letter. Because some of them come from other languages and keep some of their original grammatical forms even in English, these words about religions are often different from typical English words.

 

First, see how many words you know already. Use the exercise below.

 

cloze-religions.htm (You probably have to click the attached file above, not this apparent link.)

 

Next, see if you can fill in the table below.

 

Christian

 

 

Islam

Hindu

 

 

Daoism

Jewish

 

 

Buddhism

Confucian

 

 

Sikhism

Shinto

 

 

religions.htm

 

If you would like some more challenging work, find out what the words below mean.

 

1)                 Islamist

2)                 Jewy

3)                 Fundamentalism

4)                 orthodoxy

5)                 heresy