@Sasha: In this as in other areas, we seem to be the product of our experiences. I had formal training in Russian and found it wonderfully straightforward in the way the written form represents the spoken. I imagine the same is true of Ukrainian (I did actually know that you're an Ukrainets because I had a look at your profile. I thought I said so, but apparently I didn't)

But I learned some Nederlands (Dutch) in much the same way you learned English, but found when I went to the country on holiday that I couldn't understand a word, nor, allegedly, could anyone understand me. The written form doesn't map the pronunciation at all well.