"Il lit le journal et tu lis un livre."

Translation: He is reading the newspaper and you are reading a book.

[Duomail]

Isn't it pronounced /liz_un/ for lis un ?

[mr_moustache]

so lit is masculine and lis is feminine?

[Sitesurf]

No, "lis" and "lit" are two forms of verb "lire", like "read" and "reads" are forms of verb "to read". The form changes with the subject of the verb.

Je lis, tu lis, il/elle/on lit, nous lisons, vous lisez, ils/elles lisent.

[LaurenSwacks]

that was really helpful! This confuses me so much

[Jewel15]

I said he reads the news and you read a book and it counted it wrong...

[Sitesurf]

reading the news and reading a newspaper are not the same.

[EzCheddar]

It just gave me the answer. I didnt learn ANYTHING!!?!

[Dra9onWolf9]

yep

[Geordash]

Damn. For some reason I thought livre was feminine.

[Marko.Bremer]

Shouldn't there be a liaison in the "s" sound between "lis" and "un"?

[Sitesurf]

Technically yes, though it is not compulsory.

[Alyssacookie]

I don't get the logic after using definite or indefinite articles in these examples on en-fr duolingo. Probably that's 'cause I'm russian and we don't have any articles, but here the examples are out of context and I can't get where should really be one or another article.

[Sitesurf]

I imagine how tough it is if you were not born with articles...

Let's try:

• he reads the newspaper: a specific newspaper, the one published this morning, the one he found on his chair, his usual newspaper... = il lit le journal

• he reads a newspaper: we don't know anything about this newspaper = il lit un journal

[Alyssacookie]

thanks, but I do get the use of the arcticles, for example, in English, as I know it, I hope, well enough)

[Dillz2003]

Why is "He reads the newspaper and you read the book" wrong?

[Sitesurf]

"un livre" = a book