Marie cherche un studio meublé près du centre-ville.

Usually, yes: un studio in French means a studio apartment / one-room apartment.

It is a false friend only in some contexts:

• In both languages, studio can mean an artist’s or recording studio.
• In housing, French un studio very commonly means a small apartment with one main room.

So in this sentence, un studio meublé means a furnished studio apartment.

Because studio is a masculine noun in French.

That means it takes:

• un in the singular
• adjectives in the masculine singular form

So:

• un studio
• un studio meublé

If the noun were feminine, you would use une instead.

Because in French, many adjectives are placed after the noun.

So:

• un studio meublé = a furnished studio

This is very normal in French. English often puts adjectives before the noun, but French frequently puts them after.

Compare:

• un appartement meublé
• une maison moderne
• un quartier calme

Some adjectives do come before the noun, but meublé is normally placed after it.

Because meublé is agreeing with studio, which is masculine singular.

French adjectives usually agree with the noun they describe in:

• gender: masculine or feminine
• number: singular or plural

Here:

• studio = masculine singular
• so the adjective is meublé

Other forms would be:

• un studio meublé → masculine singular
• une chambre meublée → feminine singular
• des studios meublés → masculine plural
• des chambres meublées → feminine plural

Because cherche is the conjugated form of the verb chercher.

The subject is Marie, which is third person singular, so the verb must be conjugated:

• chercher = to look for / to search for
• Marie cherche = Marie is looking for / Marie looks for

Present tense of chercher:

• je cherche
• tu cherches
• il/elle cherche
• nous cherchons
• vous cherchez
• ils/elles cherchent

So Marie cherche is the correct form.

Because French chercher takes a direct object.

In English, we say:

• to look for something

But in French, you say:

• chercher quelque chose

So:

• Marie cherche un studio not
• Marie cherche pour un studio

That is a very common thing English speakers have to get used to:

• chercher = to look for
• but grammatically it works more like to seek in English

Because de + le contracts to du in French.

So:

• près de le centre-ville → près du centre-ville

This contraction is required.

Useful contractions:

• de + le = du
• de + les = des
• à + le = au
• à + les = aux

So près du centre-ville means near the city center / downtown.

Le centre-ville means the town center, city center, or downtown, depending on context.

It refers to the central area of a town or city.

The hyphen is normal:

• centre-ville

So:

• près du centre-ville = near downtown / near the city center

Because centre-ville is treated as a fixed compound noun in French.

French often uses hyphens in compound words, and centre-ville is one standard example.

You should generally learn it as one unit:

• le centre-ville

Because Marie is a proper name, and proper names in French usually do not take an article.

So you normally say:

• Marie cherche...
• Paul habite...
• Sophie travaille...

In some special regional or informal uses, people may use an article with a name, but that is not the normal standard pattern here.

A simple approximate pronunciation for an English speaker would be:

preh dew sahntr-veel

A few points:

• près sounds roughly like preh
• du is pronounced with the French u, which has no exact English equivalent; dew is only an approximation
• centre has a nasal vowel, so it is not pronounced exactly like English center
• ville sounds like veel

Also, in careful speech:

• centre-ville keeps both parts clearly pronounced
• the t in centre is usually pronounced

Yes. French present tense can often be translated in more than one way in English, depending on context.

Marie cherche un studio meublé près du centre-ville can mean:

• Marie is looking for a furnished studio near downtown
• Marie looks for a furnished studio near downtown
• sometimes even Marie is searching for a furnished studio near downtown

In everyday English, is looking for is usually the most natural translation here.

No. In this sentence, meublé clearly describes studio.

Structure:

• un studio meublé = one noun phrase
• près du centre-ville = a location phrase

So the sentence breaks down like this:

• Marie = subject
• cherche = verb
• un studio meublé = what she is looking for
• près du centre-ville = where that studio is located

That means she is looking for a furnished studio that is near the city center.