As a Spaniard with kids living in UK, it's very hard to teach them the gender of words that should not really need to have a gender. Why does "car" need to be masculine?!
It's easier if you don't think it as actual gender, and just as grammar. You have "el televisor" (masculine) and "la tele" o "la tv" (femenine), both meaning "the tv". It's more about how the word ends than anything.
Still, it's something that if someone gets it wrong, it sounds off but everyone still understands. No one is going to care for a foreigner saying that wrong. There's no really a confusion to be had there.
But time/weather can lead to actual misunderstandings.
it's less of a Spanish thing and more of a cultural slang thing that is really not more of an issue than any other slang in any language can create, which is to say, rather minor.