Greek vocabulary is not as challenging ast it seems; rather, pathetic beginner’s curriculums make it challenging. When I started memorizing Greek verbs, I became boggled down by the seemingly limitless number and variety of changes in the stem of a verb. Once I began studying Smyth’s section on “Changes in the Verb stem,” everything became clear to me. For anyone just beginning to learn Greek, do not study any verbs save those used for paradigms until you have read this; I guarantee it will make the language exponentially easier to learn.
Another great method of memorizing verbs, which is done by almost all Routledge’s modern grammars, is to classify the verbs into “irregular groups” group. E.g., all the verbs in tt/ss in greek can be learned together and so forth, or the german ie->o->o and so forth.
Vir, thanks for the info. I have Smyth’s grammar and am reading that section now.
Learning Greek vocabulary in general, not just the verbs, is significantly lightened by learning a little historical linguistics.
The operations of ablaut (vowel gradation) are especially clear in Greek. A look at Smyth sections 35 and 36 provides the tools to recognize relationships between words you might not otherwise notice.
For example, early in my reading I realized that where you have an e-grade stem, you may also have a contract verb in -έω derived from the o-grade of the same stem (by way of the o-grade a-declension noun, I’d guess), often with a very similar meaning, though there are some specializations. For example:
φέ?ω > (φο?ή (i.e. φο?ά) >) φο?έω
χέω > (χοή >) χοέω
τ?έπω > (τ?οπή >)τ?οπέω, κτλ.
I’ll always remember the first time I guessed the meaning of ὀχθέω (related to ?χθ?ός, I’m pretty sure, pace LSJ.). Even if it doesn’t free you from the dictionary, knowing some of these changes often gives you a mental slot to drop new words into.