"A lot of people think that those places are difficult to find."
Translation:Mucha gente piensa que esos lugares son difíciles de encontrar.
I have a couple questions: 1. Is it also correct to say "Muchas personas"? 2. Could you also use the verb creer here? In my experience in Chile Creer means to think/believe in terms of thinking something is a certain way (i.e. difficult to find) while pensar is used to say "thinking about something" such as "thinking about christmas time" 3. Why is it "de encontrar" and not "a encontrar". I am not questioning the validity just curious as to what the rule behind this is?
I'm also confused about the whole creer/pensar thing. My previous sentence was people think I'm crazy, and I used pensar and was marked wrong. This one came up so I went with creer and now it wants pensar.
Is there a good reason for one or the other, or is this just a finicky Duo sentence?
"Pensar" more plainly relates to thought and thinking. While "creer" carries with it the concepts of thought and belief. They aren't always interchangeable, for example: "¿Me crees?" asks "Do you believe me," while the verb "pensar" could not be swapped to say, "Do you think me?" For the English speaker, the interchangeability of these two verbs also exists and is most easily recognised in the following constructions: "Do you believe/think that (Some concept)" or in this case, "A lot of people think/believe that those places are difficult to find." I hope this helps. Best of luck and happy holidays!