Le means what in this case?

Question

El acto terrorista le hizo daño a mucha gente. (The terrorist act hurt a lot of people.)

-phrase taken from spanish.about.com-

from my understanding LE is an indirect object pronoun that means:

(to) him/her/you

it just seems to me that in the above sentence LE is not needed, unless it is a typos for LES? i can only think that it is acting as a subject noun, example

yo hice = i done

tu hiciste = you done

le hizo = it

am i correct here? if not, could someone explain its use here because it just seems redundant.

Answer 1

I hope a better speaker jumps in to confirm, but.

First, it is le (rather than les) because the indirect object is ´gente´ which is singular (even though it collectively means multiple persons)

Second, it is actually the ´a mucha gente´ part that is redundant. That part clarifies TO WHOM, but is not needed. The LE (or equivalent) however, is always required.

Seems strange to me as a native English speaker too, but that´s just what they do.

And i guess the "mucha gente" clarifies who the damage was actually being done to because without it i guess the phrase would be a bit ambiguous - 0042fe78, Oct 24, 2012

I see! so even though people in itself refers to more then one it is still singular so they have to use LE instead of LES . - 0042fe78, Oct 24, 2012

exactly right Mathais, on both counts. But I think the important point is that even though ´a mucha gente´ might be needed to be clear, it is still, strictly by grammar rules, redundant, and the LE is REQUIRED by those same rules. - rogspax, Oct 24, 2012

And yes, on gente being singular too. I´m still getting myself used to that, and find myself wanting to use it in plural, or apply plural conjugation to it (such as the incorrect ´la gente quieren...´) I don´t have this fully down either. - rogspax, Oct 24, 2012

Answer 2

"Gente" is singular in Spanish.

El acto terrorista = The terrorist act

le = to the people

hizo daño = did damage

a = personal "a" here

mucha gente = lots of people

without the "mucha gente" LE could be read as: to him/her. So i guess without the ending part the phrase can be misread. - 0042fe78, Oct 24, 2012