English language is not a meal, it is just a tool. Just a thought. I've noticed new tendency. Two years ago people including your obedient servant booked lessons of "real" native speakers (UK, US) massively. It was affordable. Now after the dollar exchange rate has doubled people either stopped booking (e.g. me) real native speakers' lessons or (sic!) began to book lessons of non-native speakers who has a good enough level of English. My experience of booking lessons on Italki has revealed me an interesting fact. In average ESL teachers are more friendly, more diligent, eager in teaching than UK/US native speakers.

Russian subjunctive There's is an opinion that russian language has one type of the subjunctive only forming via the particle 'by' [бы]. E.g. "я сделал бы это, если бы он пришёл". This phrase comprises two condition types: а) Present subjunctive. Real condition with possibility to change something. English equivalent is 'I would do it if he came' б) Past subjunctive. Unreal condition without any opportunity to change anything. Expressing regret. English equivalent: I would have done it if he had come. In russian language these subjunctive types coincide. It turns out to be not really true. There's grammatical ability to tell one subjunctive type from another. For example: а) Present subjunctive. "Надо бы ему прийти, тогда я сделаю это" [He should come then I will do it] б) Past subjunctive. "Надо было ему прийти, тогда я сделал бы это" [I wish he had come I would have done it then] It proves to be the combinations `надо было`, `можно было` unambiguously relates the clause to the past subjunctive. Moreover the present subjuntive uses the particle 'бы' and the past subjuntive uses the verb 'было'. This becomes more interesting if we take into account that the particle 'бы' is the ancient form of the past tense (aorist) and now loses its verbal character. In checz language we can still see its verbal nature.