[tungstenfurnace]

OK, so what's the optimum strategy?

How about starting with a CD and book of nursery rhymes and then listening whilst following the text.

Then eventually ditching the CD and reading/singing the rhymes from the book out loud.

Then (having read the translations) doing the same whilst visualising the content.

[tokenadult]

what's the optimum strategy?

For an adult learner, CONSCIOUS awareness of the different phoneme system of the target language is almost surely necessary. For some language combinations, dictionaries with International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation keys can help a good deal. Better quality language textbooks have a beginning section detailing differences in the sound system from the learner's native language to the target language.