Clover & Lilies

"Viel Glück" would translate as "Best of luck" or just "Good luck".

The four-leaved clover would be "der vierblättrige Klee".

Lots of you will have heard of, and probably seen works by, the artist Paul Klee. If you do then you know that his surname is pronounced like the English "clay" and not "clee".

Vowels are funny in German.

"A" is pronounced like a soft "a" in English.
"E" is pronounced like a hard "A" in English
'I" is pronounced like "E"...
"O" is just "O"
"U" has so many variations that it makes me dizzy.  Put an umlaut on top like "ü" and you can tell the native speakers from the non-native speakers straight away.

I remember a class in my language school where we talked about the differences between "ö", "u" and "Ü" which boiled down to "What? You can't differentiate between 'oo', 'oo' and 'oo'?"  

No, I can't. Especially not when people speak so quickly.  

You either learn before you're 4 or you spend the time guessing what the word was.

My German is pretty good, but I struggle with it every day.