I started all over with ancient Greek, motivated and all, and notice that my attention dwindles when I have to get into the -μι verbs, the medium and passive.
That’s exactly where my interest faded in high school! Why is that? Is it over-complication, saturation? It just seems so typical that I waver at just the same point as (ehum) 25 years ago.
Did anybody else experience the same? Or is it just silly me?
perispomenon, I actually still remember the time I learnt the -mi verbs in highschool . I balked. Flatly refused to memorise what needed memorising and understanding the rest. My mother being also a teacher of ancient Greek combined the talents and ‘arsenal’ and devious methods of each of the two roles to cajole and threaten me into lerning them. I am thankful that she did of course but still..
I don’t know what it is about the -mi verbs. It’s not as if they are that difficult to learn, but it seems that they cause this reaction to many people (I know the vast majority of my students -at first- flatly refuse to believe that it is not all that difficult to learn them).
I guess that answers your question.
I don’t think it’s humanly possible -for me- to convince you that it’s going to be fun or easy or whatever. However think of how very usefull it is to know these verbs and consider all the efforts you have made. Are you willing to let these horrible verbs make you waste them?
It might have something to do with saturation.
It is usually taught after all the forms of the Omega verbs have been dealt with and then you have to start aaallll over with mi verbs.
Oh god, mi verbs are in the next chapter in my Greek book. I don’t want to go to the next chapter now.
Oh Agrippa they are not that bad!
He Agrippa,
I will go on too 
No way will the -μι verbs get the better of me! We can do it!
Anyway: it’s not the poor -μι verbs fault. When grammars would have started with them, we would now be complaining about the -ω verbs, right?
I personally do not have a problem with mi verbs, or at least not more than other aspects of the Greek language.
Lucky you!
Lol
First of all, good for you! No group of verbs should stand in your way
Seconly , speak for yourself and any other foreigner lerning ancient Greek. I still remember ranting and explaining to the wolrd at large that, although it is a pitty that Greeks did away with some other parts of their language (e.g. the poor participle is so confined today comparatively speaking), we were oh so right to turn all the -mi verbs into -w ones! 
They’re not that bad. Just keep in mind that the name “-μι verbs” is a misnomer — only the present system of these is unusual (i.e., present and imperfect). All the other stems conjugate as expected, though the very common δίδωμι, ἵστημι, τίθημι and ἵημι do have irregular variations in the aorist stem. Most of the other -μι verbs you’ll encounter – including fairly common things like δείκνυμι, ὄλλυμι — are much less unruly.
Surely you have learned the present tense of εἰμί. 
Once you know that, it’s not hard to bridge the gap to φημί and the rest of them are a breeze.
By the way, has εἰμί also become an omega verb in modern Greek? 
hyptia you must be kidding! We are talking about the verb “to be”. “To be” has sworn on its life to give grief to humanity in all its forms.
It’s (in the standard Greek; don’t ask me about dialects and such although many are much closer to AG)
Είμαι
Είσαι
Είναι (how about that eh? Congused the heck out of me when I first learnt AG)
Είμαστε
Είστε
Είναι (hehe)
And in many languages.
I just think μι verbs are evil. Plain and simple. Same goes for irregular verbs. If I ever create a language, it will have no irregular verbs. In my first year Grammar we had a character called “Professor Oddity” that intoduced all of the μι verbs. In my copy of the book…all the “Professor Oddities” have little devil horns poking out of his forehead.
μι verbs, irregulars…don’t get me started!
Hush now, I just convinced myself it’s not their fault!
What’s so hard about them? It’s just a few more endings to learn.
True, I guess.. it’s just that I personally didn’t have any trouble with it. In the present indicative, infinitive, and participle. (I’m only now learning the imperfect indicative; the subjunctive, optative, and imperative are still well out of my reach.)
That’s interesting about the modern forms. At first it seems like they’ve changed an awful lot, but looking closer I can see a lot of resemblance to the ancient middle forms. Understandably confusing with respect to the AG infinitive though.
Funny, I actually have an idea for a language. It is derived from Indo European, has one declension and one conjugation, and has absolutely no irregulars. Except for some accusative pronouns to keep them from sounding like people’s names - like this one time I was saying something to my father in Greek, and while explaining the sentence I pointed to him and said σοῦ. 
hyptia, in case you have some time to lose you might want to check this page out.
If you scroll down at the bottom in has links from which you can see a fairly good table with the verb λ?ω conjugated in ancient and modern (λ?νω) Greek (it just doesn’t include modern subjuctive).
Thank you! I found it very informative, and the “flavor” system of stems is a good way to explain it. (I’m one of those who realized the parallels between the present/future and imperfect/aorist - and in the middle voice the similar parallel with perfect/pluperfect.)
Hahaha! I don’t like stawberry in general but, the ‘flavour’ system (which we use anyway but without reference to taste) cuts one’s work in half (in the middle voice less than half)