"They read us a book."

Translation: Ils nous lisent un livre.

[NicoPup]

Why not: "Ils nous lisent un bouquin"?
"Bouquin" (familiar) is almost as common in French as "livre"

[JamesGerra2]

Exactly

[Erin344973]

How do you tell whether it's femenine or masculine?

[Bbeeplaysbass]

"Elles on lisent un livre" doesn't work?

[georgeoftruth]

No. “On” is only a subject. It cannot be the object of a verb.

[alljule]

Why not: Ils nous lisent un livre.

[4.eauamu2B7WtFag]

"Ils nous lisent un livre" was marked correct for me today, 26 February 2015

[AnnaSzelenyi]

I don't know, I want to ask this too... ! : )

[klaw02]

Isn't this sentence in past tense? So shouldn't it be "Ils nous ont lu un livre?"

[gumbek3]

when do you use la/Le and when do you use un/Une ????????

[klaw02]

Depends on the gender of the noun. In French each noun has a gender. You have to look up a dictionary to find a word's gender. There are some general rules that apply to certain nouns, but there are so many exceptions that it's just easier to learn every word.

[BroZgen]

i wrote "ils lisent un livre pour nous." isnt this right too?

[Everardpark]

That has more of the sense'. they do us a favour and read a book'

[shalvas]

I haven't gotten to the past yet and duolingo will only accept past form!

[shalvas]

After giving it the past form it tells me that another option is the present form exactly as I tried 5 times before memorizing the past form! Go figure...

[eliseckt]

Why not "ils on lisent un livre"? When do i use "nous" or "on"?

[georgeoftruth]

You cannot use “on” as an object of a verb. It’s only a subject. Use “nous” as the object.