I am interested in the “All the Greek Verbs” book that is a like a rutter that has all verb forms; Mastronarde hits you with the morphing verbs in Unit 18 or so. However on Amazon a few (one or two?) reviewers claim to be professors and recommend the book only to those who have already spent 2 years learning Greek.
Do you think this book is useful, or will it ‘spoil’ me so that I always will be forced to use it, never being able to read “naturally” without it? Or by using it, over time, will allow me to learn as I go? Should I be memorizing all the forms of the verbs, or can I get away with simply working through, learning by example how the forms change, and slowly master the forms naturally? The Mastronarde list of verbs with Aorist & Future, although limited, is still daunting to memorize–and takes time from my other learning.
No, it’s nothing worth getting. Memorize the basic paradigms, memorize the principle parts of the standard verbs that every text has you memorize, and then start reading as much as possible. The LSJ Middle is all you need as a reference book to look up verb forms.
Spend your money on heavily annotated texts that make reading as easy as possible. Check out Geoffrey Steadman’s brand new texts of Homer and Plato.
If it’s only for reference, you have complete charts of participles on Smyth §§305-310 pp. 82-85 (pp. 97-100 in the pdf here on textkit),
and mostly complete charts of verbs --from the regular to the contracted to mi verbs-- on §§382-422 pp. 112-142 (pp. 127-157 in pdf).
The irregular mi verbs charts are given on §§768-794 pp. 211-218 (pp.226 -233 in pdf).
The pdf pages are very clear and hi-res, and I’m sure printing these pages would cost much less than buying a book for $20, not including shipping.
The reason I like Smyth’s charts so much is that everything is clearly laid out: the stem is often separated from the augment, reduplication,
and personal endings; the uncontracted forms are given in parenthesis next to the contracted ones; and if a certain form needs further
explanation, a reference to the relevant section is given.