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Last week, I published a fun quiz on our social media about the use of the verbs “was” and “were”.

Looking at the results, many who took part didn’t get the answers right, and we received comments from some followers who wanted to know more about this grammatical rule.

So I’m writing this today to explain to you the difference between the two verbs.

A few months back, I had to do a live video for a group of students.

I had prepared everything that I was going to talk about–I wrote down the flow in my notebook and I had all my notes and points ready. I had also gone through everything that I was going to say.

After doing several live videos, I felt a bit more confident than usual.

I would usually rehearse for these sessions. I’d rehearse as if I were actually doing the session.

Today, the My English Matters Team (me, Madam Azimah & Aisya) will be making our way for our quarterly meeting in KL.

It will be the first time I meet Madam Azimah in real life this year. She lives in Terengganu and Aisya and I are here in Klang Valley. We’ve been meeting virtually all this time, so I don’t feel like it’s been long!

Anyway, yesterday we were discussing the agenda for our meeting and one thing that came up was the word “tentative”.

We notice that a lot of Malaysians use the word “tentative” as a noun to mean “programme”, “agenda” or “itinerary” of an event. But that’s not the correct meaning.

“Tentative” means “not certain or fixed”. It’s actually an adjective.

Imagine you’re presenting in a meeting with your bosses and suddenly somebody raises their hand and asks you a question.

You should be able to answer the question, but you’re finding it difficult to think on the spot.

What do you do?

Being in front of a group of people and speaking off the cuff can be hard. Getting a question that you have to answer on the spot can be even harder.

I want to introduce you to a technique called “Buying Time”.