I'm sorry to say that I found these "principles" of yours to be not helpful at all. I understand you have a specific way you like to look at things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I can't imagine a situation where "not knowing these principles will put you at an extreme disadvantage".

Tony,

Thank you for this article. I'm knew to italki and your concept of the jars is a really idea. I've been trying to learn French for two years and have been stuck with the conversation piece because when I get around native speakers, I freeze up instead of jumping into a conversation and "getting those wrong statements out of the way early."

Anyway. The visualization of filling those jars makes it easy to start a phrase book of items that I only want to use.

Nice article.