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Having seen one sentence in "Practical English Usage" by M.Swan (a very popular grammar book), I was really puzzled.
I waited until the rain had stopped.
The past perfect is generally used to show that one past action was completed before the other one, but here, trying to analyze the sentence, we can't say that first the rain stopped and then she waited. I can't grasp the use of using the past perfect in this sentence.
Why does this sentence use the past perfect?
The past perfect is used to emphasise completion of a past action. Example:
I arrived home after my wife had gone to bed.
In other words: "My wife went to bed. Sometime after that I arrived home."
In your sentence, the speaker is using the past perfect to emphasise the following:
It stopped raining. Sometime after that I stopped waiting (because I was sure that the rain had stopped.)
If you do not wish to emphasise the point about the rain stopping, it is perfectly ok to say:
I waited until the rain stopped.
In the present tense it would be I wait until the rain has stopped. That is actually an unlikely sentence, as we'd probably say I'll wait until the rain has stopped. The point, however, is that by putting both wait and has in the past tense we move the action from the present to some time before the moment of speaking or writing.
