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Every noun in German has an inherent grammatical gender. (masculine, feminine and neuter) It's even more important to get this right in German as you need the gender to correctly decline your noun for case.
Here is the declension pattern for the definite article (the)
There's nothing optional about this unless you want to completely avoid nouns.
Grammatical gender is a reality of the majority of languages in the Indo-European family, including Old English. Modern English is kind of the oddball in this. There's no rhyme or reason for it, but it is what it is.
(Pity German films are all so freaking depressing or WWII-based, and that Irish only has a soap opera. Oh, well.)
This goes with Revoltingest's post, but here many of us believe that English is "god's language," or we believe we are so superior that there is no need to learn another language (which is blatantly false as we do alot of business with other countries like Germany and Japan and we have many Mexican immigrants). And if it isn't one of those, American culture does not encourage bilingualism; it's either actively discouraged, or viewed as being something reserved for super smart people.
America actually has several dialects. Myself I normally speak in what is considered "accent neutral" which is common for the American Midwest. People in New England pronounce their "Rs" differently, and there is also a Southern drawl and Cajun English.
They are mandatory. Using correct definite and indefinite articles depends on knowing the gender of the noun you are using, as well as the case being used. You also have to know the gender of the noun to use correct adjective endings. And the gender of the nouns are typically arbitrary and cannot be inferred.
I wish German was that easy. I was in German class the other day trying to remember what the gender of Bibliothek (library) is. Turns out it's feminine (die), but the way I was using it makes it masculine (der). Sometimes you can make make some sort of relation between the word and it's gender to help you remember it, such as der Kuli, which is a pen, a long stick like a man's penis, or die Tür, a door, which the "door way of life" is a female's vagina, but die Wand (wall) or das Buch (neuter, book), elude any clever ways to remember the gender in my mind. At least Japanese doesn't have gender to make that one even more complicated.
No, I'm requesting something documented as I don't consider you trustworthy as a reporter based on the threads regarding gender and find your use of patronizing language insulting. Teachers have suspended kids before rightly and wrongly, that doesn't demonstrate that it is prohibited which is different than it not being taught to students or used as a language to be taught in.
You're continuing to miss the point. It isn't about how "easy" it is to tell it's that there are genders at all. To an English speaker there's no reason to gender ANY nouns.
As far as I can tell, and have been told, at least in German they are arbitrary in most situations. Sometimes it is how a word ends, such as anything that ends with "chen" is neuter, which is why it is das Mädchen (young girl). Or if it's plural it is always feminine, even if it's a group of men. Many foreign loan words I'm pretty sure are feminine. But what the hell kind of a gender is Waser (water) supposed to have?
Like many things you get used to it, I just was trying to explain the point more because it seemed to be being missed.
