How does the gender of German nouns work?

In German there are three genders that a noun could have: masculine, feminine, and neuter. If you have studied French or Spanish for example, you will have seen nouns that have masculin or feminine genders, but in German we have a third gender too: neuter. 

Every German noun is assigned a gender, though in the plural form all nouns are the same, whatever gender they are. The gender of a noun changes the way in which we say 'the' or 'a', as well as changing the ending of adjectives that are used to describe it. It is an essential part of the german language!