La piqûre me fait encore un peu mal.

Piqûre is a flexible word. Depending on context, it can mean:

• an insect bite or sting
• an injection
• a prick or puncture

In a sentence like this, it can also refer loosely to the sore spot left by the bite/sting/injection, not just the action itself.

French often uses the definite article where English might use my, your, etc., especially when the thing is already clear from context.

So la piqûre means the bite/sting/injection, but in context it may naturally correspond to my bite/sting/injection in English.

French does this a lot with body-related things and obvious context:

• J’ai mal à la tête = My head hurts
• Il s’est cassé le bras = He broke his arm

Me means to me here.

The expression is faire mal à quelqu’un, which literally works like to cause pain to someone.

So:

• La piqûre fait mal à moi is not how French normally says it
• instead, French uses the pronoun me before the verb: La piqûre me fait mal

This is the normal object-pronoun position in French.

Because French object pronouns usually go before the conjugated verb.

So:

• me fait
• te fait
• lui fait
• nous fait

This is very normal French word order:

• Ça me plaît
• Il te parle
• La piqûre me fait mal

English puts me after the verb, but French usually puts it before.

Because faire mal is one of the most common French ways to express to hurt.

It literally looks like to make pain, but you should learn it as a set expression:

• Ça fait mal = That hurts
• La piqûre me fait mal = The sting/injection hurts
• J’ai mal = I’m in pain / It hurts

French can also use words like douloureux / douloureuse, but that sounds more formal or descriptive:

• La piqûre est douloureuse = The injection/sting is painful

That is not quite as natural in everyday speech as faire mal.

Here, encore means still.

So the idea is that the pain has not completely gone away yet.

Be careful: encore can also mean again in other contexts. For example:

• Dis-le encore = Say it again

But in La piqûre me fait encore un peu mal, the natural meaning is still.

Un peu is the normal expression for a little.

So:

• un peu mal = a little painful / hurting a little

Peu by itself often means little in a more bare, sometimes more formal or less natural way in this kind of sentence.
So J’ai un peu mal is very common, while J’ai peu mal sounds unusual to most learners and is not the everyday choice here.

Because the sentence is talking about a current result: it still hurts now.

French uses the present tense for an ongoing present situation, just as English does in:

• It still hurts

If you wanted to talk about past pain that is finished, you would use a past tense instead:

• La piqûre m’a fait mal pendant deux jours = The sting/injection hurt for two days

Yes.

• La piqûre me fait encore mal = It still hurts
• La piqûre me fait encore un peu mal = It still hurts a little

Adding un peu makes the pain sound milder.

Piqûre is pronounced approximately pee-kyr in English-style approximation, but the French u sound does not exist naturally in standard English.

A few helpful points:

• qu is pronounced like k
• the u in -qûre is the French u sound, not an English oo
• the final e is not pronounced

The circumflex in û is mostly a spelling feature in modern French. It does not usually create a big pronunciation difference for learners here. You may also see the reformed spelling piqure, but piqûre is still very common.