Uh? I'm Portuguese and it works in the same in my language. I don't know what the big deal is. You get the gender by the arti...

Oh...

oh, that's so easy! It's both, depending how you translate it: une machine à laver or un lave-linge.

is that like how you have to memorize every single articels (der, die, das) for every word in german?

Spanish enters the room: words have gender, but there are special cases where the definite article switches gender.

"El hacha roja/Las hachas rojas", "El agua fría/Las aguas frías"

Also, some words may have both genders:

"El computador/La computadora"

Romance fans will tell you the French language is the adoration of beauty.
The British will tell you that the french taste for beauty is the same as their taste for cheese: it stinks.

Say what you will, exam nightmares are real

If it ends with an 'e' it's probably feminine. Moustache is feminine. There's a handful of exceptions that are easy to remember

The only way to know for sure is to ask the washing machine how it identifies

It's neuter in greek, even though "machine" is feminine, cause the greek word is like "washer" instead of "washing machine". Although I think you have better things to ponder about when writing greek.

Me as a German wondering if it's the same or different than in my language.

It's a she, because that's a woman job. Same goes for dish washer !

Also, there are a few words that even french (most of them) would have the gender wrong...