How does the gender of words work in German?

Every word in German has a gender (feminin, masculin or neuter). Even though making vocabulary lists specifying the gender of words helps, there are patterns to be identified in the suffixes of words. A suffix is the last syllable of a word. For example most words ending in "ant" or "ling" will be masculine. Similarly, words ending in "ung" are very likely to be feminin and words ending in "chen" neuter.