(no subject)

[fucking--snow.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if there was a post about this earlier, I didn't feel like going through months of livejournal looking for something that might not exist.

I am a native Russian speaker but I only went to a Russian school through 6th grade, so I know how to speak it properly but I'm not great with the proper names for cases, particles, speech parts, etc. So I'm teaching my boyfriend Russian and him being an English major he wants to know the structure thoroughly, and I have been having a few problems explaining why certain things are the way they are.

Anyway, my question is, what's a good way to explain the word "бы"? First he wouldn't believe me when I said that it has nothing to do with "быть". Now he won't believe me when I say it is not a verb, (because he keeps thinking of the English "would"), and I can't think of what part of speech it actually is, and how to explain the usage.

Please help.

P.S. I love this community.