La louche est à côté de la passoire, juste derrière le mixeur.

Because French nouns have grammatical gender.

• louche is feminine, so it takes la
• passoire is feminine, so it takes la
• mixeur is masculine, so it takes le

This gender does not necessarily have anything to do with biological sex. It is simply a property of the noun that you have to learn with the word.

Est is the he/she/it form of the verb être, which means to be.

So:

• la louche est... = the ladle is...

French uses est here for location, just like English uses is.

À côté de means next to or beside.

It is a fixed expression:

• à = at/to
• côté = side
• de = of

So literally it is something like at the side of.

Examples:

• à côté de la passoire = next to the colander
• à côté du mixeur = next to the blender

You should learn à côté de as one chunk.

Because after à côté de, French normally keeps the article.

So:

• à côté de la passoire
• à côté du mixeur
• à côté des assiettes

This is different from some English patterns, where the article may feel less important. In French, the article is usually required.

Because derrière works differently from à côté de.

• à côté de includes the preposition de as part of the expression
• derrière already means behind, so it is followed directly by the noun phrase

So you say:

• derrière le mixeur = behind the blender
• devant la porte = in front of the door

You do not add an extra de after derrière.

Here, juste means just in the sense of exactly or right.

So:

• juste derrière le mixeur = just behind the blender or right behind the blender

It adds precision and emphasis. It tells you the ladle is not simply somewhere behind it, but very specifically right behind it.

The comma separates two location phrases:

• à côté de la passoire
• juste derrière le mixeur

Both describe where la louche is.

The comma helps the sentence read more naturally, especially when giving layered spatial information. In many cases, French punctuation here works similarly to English punctuation.

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly.

• La louche est à côté de la passoire, juste derrière le mixeur.
  • The ladle is next to the colander, and more precisely, it is just behind the blender.
• La louche est juste à côté de la passoire.
  • The ladle is right next to the colander.

In other words, juste modifies whatever comes after it. Its position matters.

Louche is pronounced roughly like loosh.

A few pronunciation notes:

• ou in French sounds like oo in food
• ch sounds like sh

So:

• louche ≈ loosh

Passoire is pronounced roughly like pa-swar.

Helpful breakdown:

• pas sounds like pa
• -soire sounds like swar

The oi spelling in modern French is usually pronounced like wa.

Mixeur is pronounced roughly like meek-sur or meek-seur, depending on how you approximate it in English.

A few points:

• the x here sounds like ks
• eur is a French vowel sound that does not exist exactly in English

So an English-friendly approximation is meek-sur, but the real French ending is more rounded.

Mostly, yes, but not perfectly.

Word-for-word:

• La louche = the ladle
• est = is
• à côté de = at the side of / next to
• la passoire = the colander
• juste derrière = just behind
• le mixeur = the blender

A natural English translation would be:

• The ladle is next to the colander, just behind the blender.

So the structure is fairly close to English, but expressions like à côté de should be learned as a set phrase rather than translated piece by piece every time.