What is a 'middle' verb in Greek?

First things first, let's clarify what's going on here in the grammatical structure of the language. In English (and most modern foreign languages), verbs have two voices: the active and passive. 'Active' means 'doing something', whereas 'passive' means  'having something done' to oneself, or 'suffering something'. For example: 'Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of email fraud' (active) versus 'Donald Trump was elected by the American people' (passive). If the subject of the verb is the subject of the action (the 'doer'), it's active; if they are the object of the action (the 'done to'), it's passive. Greek has a third voice: the middle - because it's thought of as 'between' active and passive. This seems a very counter-intuitive idea: how can a verb be neither 'doing' nor 'being done to'? Well, let's consider a few cases that do not quite fit the distinction. First, look at a reflexive verb: 'Alexander the Great was fond of praising himself' - in this case, the subject both praises and is praised - a reflexive action can be seen as both a 'doing' and a 'being done to'. Secondly, think about the difference between these two statements: (1) 'Shaggy took Scooby Doo for a walk', (2) 'Shaggy went out for a walk'. In (1), the subject is clearly doing something (taking for a walk) to something else (his dog). But in (2), there is no such object (we say the verb is 'intransitive') - the subject is just undergoing a process. Insofar as the subject both begins that process and him/herself undergoes it, there is again a kind of reflexive quality. These are the classic cases where Greek will use the middle. We can effectively divide them into cases of: (a) simple reflexive meaning - 'x did y to himself' (b) simple intransitive meaning - 'x y-ed' (here we effectively don't have to translate the 'middleness') (c) middle of advantage - 'x did y for himself/ his own benefit' However, as it has the same forms as the passive in many tenses, it will take time to learn how to tell from context whether a verb is middle or passive, and thus how best to translate it.