Breakdown of No creía que el crucero hubiera terminado tan mal.
no
no / not
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
terminar
to finish / to end up (in a state) / to quite manage (in negatives, + infinitive)
creer
to believe / to think
mal
badly / not well
tan
as / so (degree)
haber
to have (auxiliary)
el crucero
the cruise
Questions & Answers about No creía que el crucero hubiera terminado tan mal.
Why do we use the Past Perfect Subjunctive (hubiera terminado) here?
There are two things happening here. First, No creía que... (I didn't believe that...) is a negated belief in the past, which triggers the subjunctive mood. Second, the cruise ending happened before the past moment when you didn't believe it. To express a "past before a past" in the subjunctive, we use the Past Perfect Subjunctive: the imperfect subjunctive of the auxiliary verb haber (hubiera) plus the past participle (terminado).
Could I use hubiese terminado instead?
If I wanted to say "I did believe that the cruise had ended so badly", would I still use the subjunctive?
No. Affirmative verbs of belief or thought (like creer and pensar) declare what you consider to be a fact, so they require the indicative mood. You would use the Past Perfect Indicative instead: Creía que el crucero había terminado tan mal. It is strictly the negation (No creía que...) that introduces doubt and triggers the subjunctive.
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