Mi longe pensas pri bona donaco, ĉar por mi ŝia naskiĝtago estas tre grava.

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Breakdown of Mi longe pensas pri bona donaco, ĉar por mi ŝia naskiĝtago estas tre grava.

• esti: to be
• bona: good
• por: for

Questions & Answers about Mi longe pensas pri bona donaco, ĉar por mi ŝia naskiĝtago estas tre grava.

What exactly does longe mean here? Is it “long” or “for a long time”?

Longe is an adverb, so it means “for a long time”, not “long” as an adjective.

• longa = long (adjective)
  
  • longa vojo = a long road
• longe = for a long time / at a great distance (adverb)
  
  • Mi longe pensas = I think for a long time
  • Li loĝas longe de mi = He lives far from me

In this sentence, longe tells us about the duration of the thinking, so it’s “I think for a long time about a good present.”

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Could I say Mi pensas longe pri bona donaco instead of Mi longe pensas…? Is the word order important?

Both Mi longe pensas pri bona donaco and Mi pensas longe pri bona donaco are grammatically correct.

Esperanto word order is fairly flexible. The differences are:

• Mi longe pensas pri bona donaco
  Mild emphasis on the duration of the thinking: “I think for a long time about a good present.”
• Mi pensas longe pri bona donaco
  Very similar meaning; some speakers feel this sounds slightly more “neutral,” with pensas remaining close to its subject Mi.

Neither is wrong. In practice, adverbs like longe, multe, ofte, ĉiam quite often come before the verb, as in the original sentence.

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Why is it pensas pri bona donaco and not something like pensas bonan donacon without pri?