How do you know if a particular noun is masculine, feminine or neuter? Memorisation!
Yes, it's the sad truth that there are no real 'shortcuts' to determining a noun's gender. I was always taught that very short words are usually neuter, words ending in '-e' are usually feminine, and words ending in'-er' are usually masculine.
Another question you may have is how to pluralise nouns. Again, there's no easy way to do this. Some nouns add '-s', some '-e', some '-n', some an Umlaut, and some don't change at all. You just need to memorise each and every word. Or use your dictionary.
My Harper Collins German dictionary has a more comprehensive list of noun endings and their respective genders and pluralisations, which I've copied out here illegally, despite the fact I don't entirely trust it:
| -ant | M | -anten |
| -anz | F | -anzen |
| -ar | M | -are |
| -chen | N | -chen |
| -e | F | -en |
| -ei | F | -eien |
| -elle | F | -ellen |
| -ent | M | -enten |
| -enz | F | -enzen |
| -ette | F | -etten |
| -eur | M | -eure |
| -euse | F | -eusen |
| -heit | F | -heiten |
| -ie | F | -ien |
| -ik | F | -iken |
| -in | F | -innen |
| -ine | F | -inen |
| -ion | F | -ionen |
| -ist | M | -isten |
| -ium | N | -ien |
| -ius | M | -iusse |
| -ive | F | -iven |
| -keit | F | -keiten |
| -lein | N | -lein |
| -ling | M | -linge |
| -ment | N | -mente |
| -mus | M | -men |
| -schaft | F | -schaften |
| -tät | F | -täten |
| -tor | M | -toren |
| -ung | F | -ungen |
| -ur | F | -uren |
Even should this list be entirely accurate, I don't suggest worrying about it too much, because this doesn't identify a quarter of the words out there, so you'll still need to rely on memorisation.