Learn Hardcore Malay: Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek, dan soalan utama tentang sejarah keluarga. - This morning we have a short quiz, and the main questions are about family history.

Pagi ini = “this morning” (neutral, most common)
Pada pagi ini = also correct, but sounds a bit more formal or written
Di pagi ini is usually avoided in standard Malay for time; di is more for locations (di rumah, di sekolah).

So pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek is the normal everyday way to say “This morning we have a short quiz.”

Why is kami used here instead of kita?

Malay distinguishes two kinds of “we”:

kami = “we (but NOT you)” – excludes the listener
kita = “we (including you)” – includes the listener

In Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek, the speaker is talking about their group only (for example, the students in a particular class) and the listener is not part of that group.

If the listener is also going to take the quiz, you would say:

Pagi ini kita ada kuiz pendek.
“This morning we (you and I / all of us) have a short quiz.”

What exactly does ada mean here? Is it “to have” or “there is/are”?

In Malay, ada covers both ideas:

“to have”
- Kami ada kuiz pendek.
  “We have a short quiz.”
“there is/are”
- Ada kuiz pendek pagi ini.
  “There is a short quiz this morning.”

In Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek, you can understand ada as “have”.
You could also rephrase to focus on existence:

Pagi ini ada kuiz pendek. = “There is a short quiz this morning.”

Both are natural; the original just emphasizes what “we” have.

There’s no tense marker like “will” or “had”. How do we know if ada is past, present, or future?

Malay usually relies on time expressions and context, not verb conjugation, to show tense.

Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek
– If said during the morning: “This morning we have a short quiz.”
– If said earlier than that morning (e.g. last night), it can mean “This morning we will have a short quiz.”

For the past, speakers often change the time expression instead of the verb:

Pagi tadi kami ada kuiz pendek.
“This morning (earlier today) we had a short quiz.”

The verb ada itself doesn’t change form; the time word (pagi ini, pagi tadi, nanti, esok) and context carry the tense.

Why is it kuiz pendek and not pendek kuiz?

In Malay, adjectives usually come after the noun:

kuiz pendek = “short quiz” (literally “quiz short”)
sejarah keluarga = “family history” (literally “history family”)

So the pattern is:

Noun + Adjective
kuiz (quiz) + pendek (short) → kuiz pendek

Putting the adjective before the noun (pendek kuiz) is ungrammatical in standard Malay.

Do we need a word like “one” or a classifier, e.g. satu kuiz pendek or sebuah kuiz pendek?

You don’t have to. Bare nouns are very common in Malay:

kami ada kuiz pendek
= “we have a short quiz” (implied: one quiz, from context)

If you really want to emphasize “one” quiz:

kami ada satu kuiz pendek – “we have one short quiz” (numeral)

Classifiers like sebuah are more natural with many native nouns (e.g. sebuah rumah, sebuah buku).
With a borrowed word like kuiz, satu kuiz pendek is more natural than sebuah kuiz pendek, and usually you still just say kuiz pendek without any classifier at all.

What does utama add in soalan utama? Could we say soalan yang utama instead?

Utama means “main / principal / chief / primary”.

soalan utama = “the main question”

Soalan yang utama is grammatically possible, but in this context:

soalan utama is the normal, natural phrase
soalan yang utama sounds heavier/more formal or stylistic, and is less common in simple sentences like this.

So for everyday use, soalan utama is best.

Why is there no “to be” verb like adalah or ialah before tentang?

Malay often doesn’t need a copula (“to be”) in simple sentences, especially in speech.

soalan utama tentang sejarah keluarga
literally: “the main question about family history”

If you want a more formal or explicit structure, you can say:

Soalan utama adalah tentang sejarah keluarga.
Soalan utama ialah tentang sejarah keluarga.

Those are grammatically fine and sound more formal, like written Malay or presentations.
In everyday speech, most people just say it without adalah/ialah, as in your sentence.

Is there any difference between tentang and mengenai here?

Both mean roughly “about / regarding / concerning” and can be used here:

soalan utama tentang sejarah keluarga
soalan utama mengenai sejarah keluarga

Differences in feel:

tentang – very common and neutral in both spoken and written Malay.
mengenai – also common, sometimes sounds a bit more formal or written, but not strongly so.

In this sentence, they are interchangeable; tentang is perfectly natural.

Does soalan utama mean only one main question, or could it be understood as “the main questions”?

By default:

soalan utama = singular, “the main question”
soalan-soalan utama or soalan utama yang lain-lain = clearly plural “the main questions”

In your sentence:

dan soalan utama tentang sejarah keluarga
→ we naturally understand it as one specific main question about family history.

If you wanted to say “the main questions are about family history”, you might phrase it differently, e.g.:

dan soalan-soalan utama adalah tentang sejarah keluarga.

Could we say Pagi ini ada kuiz pendek untuk kami instead of Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek?

Yes, but the focus changes slightly.

Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek.
- Focus on “we” and what we have.
- “This morning we have a short quiz.”
Pagi ini ada kuiz pendek untuk kami.
- Focus on the existence of a quiz, “there is a short quiz for us”.
- Slightly more detached; could be used by someone announcing a schedule.

Both are grammatical and natural; your original sentence is the more straightforward “we have…” structure.

What’s the difference between pagi ini, pagi tadi, and pagi esok?

All three are time expressions for “morning”, but they locate the time differently:

pagi ini – “this morning”
- Can refer to this current morning, or a morning within today (depending on when you say it).
pagi tadi – “earlier this morning / this past morning”
- Used when the morning has already finished (e.g. you’re speaking in the afternoon or evening).
pagi esok – “tomorrow morning”
- Clearly future: the morning of tomorrow.

Examples:

Pagi ini kami ada kuiz pendek.
“This morning we have a short quiz.”
Pagi tadi kami ada kuiz pendek.
“This morning we had a short quiz.”
Pagi esok kami ada kuiz pendek.
“Tomorrow morning we will have a short quiz.”