La pharmacie est ouverte dès huit heures.

In French, you very often use the definite article with places and things when speaking generally or referring to a specific business: la pharmacie, la banque, le musée.

So La pharmacie est ouverte... means The pharmacy is open... or, depending on context, simply The pharmacy opens/is open...

Leaving out the article would usually sound incomplete here.

Because pharmacie is a feminine singular noun, and the adjective must agree with it.

• masculine singular: ouvert
• feminine singular: ouverte
• masculine plural: ouverts
• feminine plural: ouvertes

Since la pharmacie is feminine singular, French uses ouverte.

Est ouverte literally means is open. It describes the pharmacy’s state or condition.

So:

• La pharmacie est ouverte dès huit heures = The pharmacy is open from as early as eight o’clock / starting at eight
• La pharmacie ouvre à huit heures = The pharmacy opens at eight o’clock

Both can work in many situations, but they are not exactly the same:

• ouvre focuses on the action of opening
• est ouverte focuses on the fact that it is in the open state from that time onward

Dès means from, starting at, or as early as, with the idea that something begins at that point.

So dès huit heures suggests:

• starting at eight
• from eight onward
• as early as eight

It often has a slight nuance of already from that time or beginning as early as that.

Both can mean from or starting at, but dès is shorter and often feels a bit more immediate or emphatic.

Compare:

• La pharmacie est ouverte dès huit heures = The pharmacy is open starting at eight / as early as eight
• La pharmacie est ouverte à partir de huit heures = The pharmacy is open from eight o’clock onward

In many everyday contexts, they are very close in meaning. Dès is very common and natural here.

French tells time using heure / heures:

• une heure = one o’clock
• deux heures = two o’clock
• huit heures = eight o’clock

Because 8 is greater than 1, French uses the plural heures.

French often leaves that out when the meaning is obvious from context.

So:

• huit heures can mean 8:00
• if needed, you can clarify:
  • huit heures du matin = 8 a.m.
  • huit heures du soir = 8 p.m.

For a pharmacy opening time, people will normally understand huit heures as 8 in the morning.

Often yes, but learners should be careful.

In French, une pharmacie is the shop where you get medicine, prescriptions, and advice from a pharmacist.

In English, pharmacy can mean:

• the store
• the profession or field of study

French pharmacie can also refer to the field in some contexts, but in this sentence it clearly means the shop.

A natural pronunciation is approximately:

la faʁ.ma.si ɛ.t‿u.vɛʁt dɛ ɥi.t‿œʁ

A few useful points:

• ph in pharmacie sounds like f
• the h in huit is silent
• there is a liaison in est ouverte: ɛ.t‿u.vɛʁt
• there is usually also liaison in huit heures: ɥi.t‿œʁ

So you will often hear something like:

la farmasi é-tu-vert dè zuit-eur

That spelling is only a rough guide for English speakers, not real French spelling.

Yes. That is a very natural alternative.

• La pharmacie est ouverte dès huit heures emphasizes the open state from eight onward.
• La pharmacie ouvre dès huit heures emphasizes that the opening time is eight.

In practice, both can be used to give opening hours, though ouvre à huit heures is also especially common.

It can be more general too. Dès + time/expression means that something starts from that moment.

Examples:

• Je travaille dès six heures = I work starting at six
• Dès demain = starting tomorrow
• Dès le mois de septembre = starting in September

So in your sentence, dès huit heures is not just a clock expression; it is the broader pattern dès + starting point.