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C'était un désastre parce qu'ils avaient gâché le projet.

C'était un désastre parce qu'ils avaient gâché le projet.
It was a disaster because they had ruined the project.
From Lesson 172:The pluperfect tense formation (j'avais fait)·French

Questions & Answers about C'était un désastre parce qu'ils avaient gâché le projet.

How is the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) formed in the phrase avaient gâché?
The plus-que-parfait is used to talk about an action that happened before another action in the past. It is formed using the imparfait (imperfect tense) of the helper verb avoir or être, plus the past participle of the main verb. Here, we use avaient (the imparfait of avoir for ils) and gâché (the past participle of gâcher).
Why do we use the imparfait for c'était but the plus-que-parfait for avaient gâché?
The imparfait (c'était) sets the scene in the past to say what the situation was like: it was a disaster. The plus-que-parfait (avaient gâché) is used because the ruining happened even further back in time. They had already ruined the project before the moment it was considered a disaster.
Why does parce que become parce qu'ils here?
When que is followed by a word starting with a vowel, like the pronoun ils, the e must be dropped and replaced with an apostrophe. This elision makes pronunciation smoother and is mandatory in written French.
What is the infinitive of gâché and how else is it used?
The infinitive is the regular -er verb gâcher. Besides meaning to ruin or to spoil (like ruining a project or a party), it is also a very common way to say to waste, such as gâcher de l'argent (to waste money) or gâcher une opportunité (to waste an opportunity).

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