Scríobh Mac Léinn:

I wish I could extend this manner of learning to enough phrases, like important verbal constructions, and prepositional phrases so common in Irish. I think I would progress at a faster pace in the learning of the spoken language.

Is maith liom iad freisin. Scríobh mé focail éigin anseo:

A lán airgid	Lot of money
Ar an mbus	On the bus
Ar an talamh	On the ground
Cóngarach don chathair	Near the city
Dála an scéil	By the way
Dean sin anois	Do that now
Díreach in am	Just in time
Dún an doras	Close the door
In áit eile	In another place
Ith seo láithreach	Eat this immediately
Labhair measartha ard	Speak reasonably loud
Le haon chuidiú	With any help
Ná creid síud	Don’t believe that
Ná habair é	Don’t mention it
Oireann sé duit	It suits you
Ón áit seo	From this place
Slán ó chontúirt	Safe from danger
Tá fáilte romhat	You are welcome
Timpeall na háite	Around the place
Trasna na habhann	Across the river
Um an teach	About the house

A Mhaidhc, a chara

Go raibh míle maith agat! Your list above is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Mini-phrases consisting of two, three or four words.

"Dála an scéil" is a phrase I've seen written here many times, but I never thought to ask what it meant. Thanks especially for that one. Your list could be expanded with hundreds of such sub-phrases that I think are so important to a learner. Once the ear can pick out these oft-used sub-phrases, the brain is available to decipher/understand what's coming down the 'pike in regards to the flow of words.

Another area of learning is related to how one takes these mini-phrases and ties them together. I'm not suggesting that we talk in pre-packaged mini-phrases, but I think if a learner can grasp the mini-phrase and then couple them with other verbs, nouns, sub-phrases, via mechanisms that cause relations between them parts of a sentence, such as relative particles, the learning process proceeds to the point of fluency.

Slán go fóill