French usually uses an article before nouns much more often than English does.
So French says:
Even when English might sometimes say near pharmacy in certain styles, standard French normally wants the article:
So in this sentence, de la pharmacie is the normal form after près de.
Because the correct expression is près de.
French prepositions do not always match English ones word-for-word. Even though English simply says near the pharmacy, French uses:
So this is something to memorize as a complete pattern:
A simple approximate pronunciation for an English speaker is:
la sta-syon duh may-tro ay preh duh la far-ma-see
A slightly more careful breakdown:
A few useful notes:
No. In French, many final consonants are silent.
In this sentence:
So one reason French spelling can feel tricky is that not every written final letter is spoken.