Die Waschmaschine die

I don't know about French, but in Spanish is feminine.

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.

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

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

Cough, Though, Through (+ Threw), Thorough, Rough, Thought, Ought, Tough.

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.

Someone once told me everything is feminine unless it has something to do with power or industry.

die das der

This shit again...

Why are you so hung up on "gender"? Just replace it with "group" and you'll find the exact same situation in almost all languages.

In Swedish words are not gendered. But to specify the singular we use one of two groups. En or ett. It can be a word before what you want to specify. Or a suffix.

En banan, (a banana) Banan-en, (the banana)

Or perhaps.

Ett körsbär, (a cherry) Körsbär-et, (the cherry)

It's just one if two groups. Has nothing to do with gender. But if you really want to, we can pretend it's gendered because it doesn't matter. It's gonna be one or the other regardless.

Now tell me. How is this different from "gendered" languages? And as a bonus. There is NO rule regarding which to use when. You just have to know.

Most of the issues English has were inherited from French.