Breakdown of Nunca pensé que ella hubiera logrado ese reconocimiento.
ella
she
ese
that (masculine)
pensar
to think / to plan
lograr
to achieve
que
that / than
nunca
never
haber
(auxiliary) have
el reconocimiento
recognition
Questions & Answers about Nunca pensé que ella hubiera logrado ese reconocimiento.
Why do we use the past perfect subjunctive (hubiera logrado) here instead of just the imperfect subjunctive (lograra)?
We need the subjunctive because of the negated past belief (Nunca pensé). We specifically use the past perfect subjunctive (hubiera logrado) because her action of achieving happened before the moment you thought about it. If the achieving and the thinking were happening at the same time, you would use the imperfect subjunctive (Nunca pensé que ella lograra...).
Does Nunca pensé que trigger the subjunctive the same way No pensé que does?
Exactly. Just like no, the word nunca (never) turns the phrase into a negated belief. While Pensé que... (I thought that...) takes the indicative because it states a perceived reality, Nunca pensé que... expresses doubt or a contrary-to-fact idea, which requires the subjunctive in the following clause.
Could I drop the pronoun ella and just say Nunca pensé que hubiera logrado...?
You could grammatically, but leaving it out creates ambiguity here. The conjugation hubiera can mean "I had", "he had", "she had", or "you (formal) had". Since the first half of the sentence is about you (pensé), adding ella makes it immediately clear that someone else did the achieving.
Just as a refresher, why is it ese reconocimiento and not eso reconocimiento?
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