Verified answer

But, well "Die Band" is pronounced like the English word "band", so no confusion there!

We will have no problems understanding you at all and from context you can eliminate the few remaining misunderstandings. Just go with what some dialects here do: instead of "der, die, das" just use "de" (like "the" with a "d"). If you mumble strong enough, nobody will notice!

And we are sometimes amused by it. But only amused. It's not that rich :)

Even Germans mess it up at times, as long as you don't do it with people whose grammatical gender is their real gender, it isn't that big of a deal.

There are a few words that have different meanings depending on the gender so you might want to look out not to mess those up though (then again context would tell anyway).

I think most Germans are pretty tolerant about mistakes, but you need to be aware that there are some nouns which have different meanings in more than one gender:

der Band : volume (book)

die Band : (rock) band

das Band : ribbon, tape; band, wavelength (radio)

There are others (see link)

on the whole I think they would understand..

Its tricky I know with 3 genders!!

if you're not sure maybe clear your throat..over the definite article!

but not in an oral exam...lol