It's actually not necessary to have such a list. Just buy a book with the kind of language that you want to use (comic book are great because they are full of dialog, but you could easily pick up a script for a play, for instance). It will contain the essential chunks. How do I know? Because they are essential ;-)

I used to worry about "getting the basics", but there is a hypothesis called the "natural order hypothesis" which states that you will naturally acquire grammar in a specific order, no matter how it is presented: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/natural-order

Lists are OK, but in order to create fluency you need to acquire the ability to produce the idiomatically correct chunks without undue thinking. This requires you to be exposed to the opportunities to use the language.

For example, you can easily just harvest example sentences from grammar text books (and if you need to pass tests, this is the technique I would suggest), but while you will be able to produce and understand that grammar, you will still need to be exposed to a large volume of realistic usage of that language to be able to select the idiomatically correct grammar in various situations.

The following has worked incredibly well for me (and for the students I was teaching English to):

- Buy a book you are interested in reading.

- Work out the meaning of any sentence you can't understand (with a grammar dictionary, or some people simply buy the book translated into their native language).

- Memorise the sentence meanings using flashcards (or better: spaced repetition software -- anki is good, but for some reason they have a self signed certificate on their site, which I haven't checked out yet, so I won't link to it). Always drill from your native language to the foreign language. Theory suggests that production is not that important for learning, but it is very easy to fool yourself into thinking that you "know" a grammar point, when you can only recognize it. Production is the test to show that you actually know it.

- If you are a very basic beginner (say less than 2-3000 words of vocabulary), memorize basic vocabulary. After you get 3000 words or so, this becomes less necessary.

- Converse every chance you get. Read with all the free time that you have. Watch TV (with subtitles until you can understand the language) when you are tired of reading. This is essential because memorizing chunks will only leave you with memorized chunks. You need to exercise your ability to comprehend the application of those chunks.

- You will also need to practice the physical skills of speaking. I have found that singing pop songs works very well (I don't know if it would be beneficial for languages with a lot of tones). You can also often find websites with both spoken and written language. You can read along with the speaker to get rhythm and facility with speaking. An audio book will also work well if the language you are learning has audio books (some cultures do not seem to be interested in them).

The main thing is being realistic about the speed that you can acquire language. The average adult who has gone to university has well over 20,000 words of vocabulary (and probably 3,500 grammar points). The average child acquires about 1000 words of vocabulary a year. The average child takes 15-20 years to acquire adult level proficiency (duh ;-) ). You can do it faster, but there seems to be a limit to the speed you can do it. Expect to take at least 10 years for your first foreign language. Memorization and acquisition are different. I seem to be able to memorize 1000 words of vocabulary per month with spaced repetition software without strain. But it takes a considerable amount of time for that vocabulary to settle in my brain. I have found that alternating periods of hard study and fun application (say one month each) is ideal for me. I have not had a chance to test it on other people, so YMMV.