Le contrôleur technique lit le rapport.

Le is the masculine singular definite article, equivalent to the.

It appears twice because there are two masculine singular nouns:

• le contrôleur
• le rapport

French usually requires an article or another determiner before singular count nouns, so you normally cannot leave them bare the way English sometimes can.

In French, many adjectives come after the noun they describe.

So:

• un contrôleur technique = a technical inspector/controller

This is a very common noun + adjective pattern in French. English often puts adjectives before the noun, but French often places them after.

Here, technique is an adjective meaning technical.

It describes contrôleur, so the phrase means the technical inspector/controller. Because it is an adjective, it does not need its own article.

Lit is the third-person singular present tense form of the verb lire, meaning to read.

So:

• je lis = I read
• tu lis = you read
• il/elle/on lit = he/she/one reads

In this sentence, the subject le contrôleur technique is singular, so the verb is lit.

No. French lit is pronounced roughly like lee.

Important point:

• the final t is silent

So although it is spelled lit, it does not sound like English lit.

Yes. This sentence follows the basic pattern:

subject + verb + object

So:

• Le contrôleur technique = subject
• lit = verb
• le rapport = direct object

That makes it structurally very similar to English.

The main accent here is the circumflex on ô: contrôleur.

It is part of the correct spelling of the word. In modern French, the circumflex sometimes helps show the history of a word and can slightly affect pronunciation, but for a learner the most important thing is:

• you must write it as contrôleur
• the word is pronounced roughly kon-troh-lur, with a French r

Also notice -eur, a common ending in French nouns for a person who does something.

Yes, a few useful points:

• In lit, the final t is silent.
• In rapport, the final t is also silent.
• The final r in contrôleur and rapport is pronounced in French.
• There is no liaison between lit and le here.

A careful pronunciation would be approximately:

Le contrôleur technique lit le rapport
luh kon-troh-lur tek-neek lee luh ra-por

Both nouns are masculine singular:

• contrôleur = masculine singular
• rapport = masculine singular

That is why both articles are le.

The adjective technique agrees with contrôleur. In this case, technique happens to have the same form in masculine singular and feminine singular, so you do not see a visible change here.

For a feminine subject, you could say:

• La contrôleuse technique lit le rapport.

For a plural subject:

• Les contrôleurs techniques lisent le rapport.

Notice the changes:

• le → la or les
• contrôleur → contrôleuse or contrôleurs
• technique → techniques in the plural
• lit → lisent for a plural subject