Der can be f or m but not in the same case. And knowing what the case is is uniquely applicable to the article so the two can’t be separated. Eg, in Dativ der is always f. But what if you don’t know it’s Dativ? Well, then it doesn’t really matter which article you use.
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I was always only talking about singular nouns, but "der" is *uniquely* masculine only if you know about cases and you're in the nominative case, whereas "den" is *uniquely* masculine across all cases, assuming only singularity (which is an easier concept than cases for most).
My problem is that all the teaching seems to strongly associate "der" with masculine words, which means that if you read a feminine word in dative or genitive case, you'll associate it with being masculine, incorrectly.
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So if you're trying to work out whether a word is masculine, feminine or neuter, you can think back through all the German phrases you've heard or read, and you might remember hearing "der Fisch" or "der Katze" without knowing the case, then wrongly assume they're masculine.
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Usually I go through: - memory: do I know it? - heuristics: endings in certain consonants or vowels - Google
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Usually before you can read almost anything in Hoch Deutsch and understand anything you have been "living" in German and picked up the rules/tips to know if a word is der/die/das
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But this exactly shows the problem! A word is not der, die or das, because you can so frequently hear "der" before a "die" word! And you pick it up by listening to the examples. But half of the words you hear prefixed with "der" are not "der words"!
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