I have something to say to all of the German people on this planet. All of them.
Your gender-specific nouns are unnecessary.
Look, I love the German language — I really do. In fact, I am trying to learn it just as hard as I can. However, I am absolutely baffled as to why your nouns must have genders, and why these genders must be expressed through articles. Oh, and your nouns aren’t just masculine or feminine either; they can also be neutral (or “neuter,” as it is castratingly spelled in German). Next, you add indefinite articles and negations to the mix — also subject to these 3 genders — plus the 4 cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative), and suddenly you’ve given me over 16 different ways to show an entire country full of people I have the linguistic prowess of a mason jar.
It’s hard enough to memorize the nouns of a foreign language — must I also memorize entirely random genders associated with them? “Oh look, a bird!” No no, that’s not just a bird; that’s a male bird (der Vogel). “Wow, I’m talking to a know-it-all genius!” Nope; that’s a neutral genius (das Genie). “How strange. Is this a gun I am suddenly pointing at you?” Foolish American, that’s a female gun (die Pistole).
People of Germany, I must conclude your articles were designed specifically to confuse and embarrass me. That said, I will continue to learn your language, but I will do it the American way; with turdcutter stubbornness and deep-fried, ham-fisted bravado.
Mark Twain wrote the ultimate bitchfest on the German Language. Check out his essay, The Awful German Language, and witness the true master at work.
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
One of my professors at college, a very, very talented man and an avid learner, has been living in Germany for 20 years. He has mastered German phonetics to a point where he almost always sounds like an educated northern German (being a phoneticist, it isn’t THAT surprising), but he still messes up the grammatical genders. Even among us Germans, what gender a word is is the most frequent linguistic discussion in everyday life. Because…well…it doesn’t make sense. ;)
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