So why does the German language need 3 (definite) articles? Let's make it quick and simple:
The use of the article depends on the grammatical gender of the noun. So you use "der" for everything that's male, "die" for everything that's female and "das" for everything that's neutral. So why is it called "grammatical gender"?
You're going to love this part: The "gender" and the "grammatical gender" (aka genus) often have nothing in common at all! Men are male and women are female, that's ok so far. But girls are neutral, tables are male and cups are female. It makes absolutely no sense!
But there must be a trick, right? Sure, there's a rule that always works and prevents any mistakes! It's... well... nah, there isn't. There's no such thing. There are many "rules" or "guidelines", but they tend to have one tiny flaw: They don't work. Well... they do sometimes work but most of them are not reliable and no native speaker ever uses them. (except for one that I'll show you at the end)
I strongly recommend you to learn the articles along with each new noun that you learn. So instead of remembering "Mann = man" simply learn "der Mann = the man". That's basically no additional work, and as you make progress, you'll automatically get a feel for the right grammatical gender.
Articles are a common source of mistakes but they seldom lead to confusion. So, even if you always mix them up, it will seldom cause misunderstandings. But it would be really kind if you still tried to do it right! ;)
Oh, and I have one little surprise for you. Actually there is one way to know which definite article to use. When using the plural of a noun, the definite article "die" is always the right one. There are no exceptions here.
Pro tip:
There is one rule that can actually help you.
In compound words, the last "part" always determines the gender of the word.
(let me know if you know any exceptions but I personally can think of none)
German is full of compound words - words that are a combination of two or more other words. English on the contrary is far more likely to separate the words from each other. So while in English you say "swarm of bees", in German you it's Bienenschwarm. Bienen means bees and Schwarm means swarm - it's that simple.
So you don't need to remember the gender of every single compound word. In the Bienenschwarm-example you only need to remember the gender of "Schwarm" (which is masculine (der Schwarm)). The word Bienenschwarmbeispiel (swarm of bees example) is feminine (das Bienenschwarmbeispiel), because the word "Beispiel" (example) is female.
Got it? If not, the comment section is the right place to go!
Recommended: indefinite articles
German language is a total mess from the gender point of view, hence is more difficult to learn correctly. I mean that there is no general rule to use the masculine, fem or neu article.I do not expect to be as simple as in english ("the" for everything), but for example, in my native romanian language(a 3-rd world country) the gender is formed by 3 simple rules...ex. for masc: un(singular) - doi(plural; fem: o(sing.) - două(pl.); neu: un(sing.) - două(pl.).
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