Learn Spanish (Spain): Los fantasmas asustan mucho a la gente.

In Spanish, when you talk about a noun in a general sense (all ghosts, or ghosts as a concept), you must include the definite article (el, la, los, las). English drops the article here, but Spanish requires it.

Why do we need the a before la gente?

This is the personal a. In Spanish, when the direct object of a verb (the person or group receiving the action) is human, like la gente, you must put an a in front of it. Here, the ghosts are scaring people, so la gente requires the personal a.

Since the current lesson is about the impersonal se, why don't we use se in this sentence?

We use the impersonal se when there is no specific subject doing the action (for example, saying 'People eat well here' translates to Se come bien aquí). In this sentence, we already have a clear, specific subject doing the action: los fantasmas (the ghosts). Because we know exactly who is scaring people, we do not need the impersonal se.

Why does the sentence use mucho instead of muchos to match the plural fantasmas?