Je pense à Marie.

In French, when penser means to think about someone or something, it always takes the preposition à. The pattern is:

• penser à quelqu’un / quelque chose
• Je pense à Marie. (I’m thinking about Marie.)

Without à, the sentence would be ungrammatical or mean something else entirely.

Proper names of people normally stand without an article in French. You simply say Marie, not la Marie, unless you’re distinguishing her from another Marie in a very special context. So:

• Correct: Je pense à Marie.
• Incorrect: Je pense à la Marie.

After a preposition like à, you use a disjunctive (stressed) pronoun, not the direct‐object pronoun. So:

• Je pense à Marie. → Je pense à elle.

You cannot say Je la pense because penser à demands elle (not la).

They’re two distinct constructions:

• penser à + noun → to think about someone/something (mental focus).
– Je pense à mes vacances.
• penser que + clause → to think that / to believe (opinion or conviction).
– Je pense que c’est une bonne idée.

Mixing them up will change your meaning.

• penser à + noun = to think about (focus or consideration).
• penser de + noun = to have an opinion of or about something, often used in questions:
– Que penses-tu de ce film ? (What do you think of this movie?)
– J’ai une bonne opinion de ce film.

Remember: use à for thinking about; use de for asking or stating an opinion.

Wrap the verb pense with ne…pas:

• Je ne pense pas à Marie.

In casual spoken French you often drop the ne:

• Je pense pas à Marie.

There are three common ways:

1. Intonation (spoken):
   • Tu penses à Marie ?
2. Est-ce que:
   • Est-ce que tu penses à Marie ?
3. Inversion (more formal):
   • Penses-tu à Marie ?

All three mean Are you thinking about Marie? and are perfectly acceptable in different registers.

• je → [ʒə]
• pense → [pɑ̃s]
• à → [a]

Because à begins with a vowel, a liaison is common in careful speech:
• pense-à → [pɑ̃s‿za]

So in connected speech you often hear:
• [ʒə pɑ̃s‿za maʁi]
But in very casual talk you might skip the liaison:
• [ʒə pɑ̃s a maʁi]