Breakdown of Fue una pena que todo hubiera sido un desastre.
ser
to be
un
a, an, some
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
todo
all / everything
Questions & Answers about Fue una pena que todo hubiera sido un desastre.
How is the past perfect subjunctive formed in the phrase hubiera sido?
It is made of two parts: the imperfect subjunctive of the auxiliary verb haber (here, hubiera) and the past participle of the main verb (here, sido from the verb ser). Because the subject is todo (everything - treated as third-person singular), we use the él/ella/usted form: hubiera.
Why do we need the subjunctive here instead of the indicative?
The phrase Fue una pena que... (It was a pity that...) expresses an emotion or a subjective judgment. In Spanish, expressing an emotional reaction to an event always requires the subjunctive mood in the clause that follows que.
Why use the past perfect subjunctive (hubiera sido) and not the imperfect subjunctive (fuera)?
We use the past perfect subjunctive because the disaster happened before the moment it was judged as a pity, or because we are looking back at it as a fully completed event. If you used the imperfect subjunctive (fue una pena que todo fuera un desastre), it would mean the disaster was happening at the exact same time it was considered a pity.
Could I use hubiese sido instead of hubiera sido here?