過去完了形の使い方を復習しましょう

On Monday night, I cooked this fried rice and bean curry. I was planning on taking a picture of it before I started eating, but because I was hungry, I forgot.

It wasn't until I had eaten a lot that I remembered my intention.

Notice the past perfect in the sentence above. "Eating" was finished when I remembered. That "eating" action had an important result, which is that the food was gone before I could take a picture. Those are the two reasons to use past perfect tense.

1. the action is finished before an important past time
2. that action has a result that is important at the important past time

Last summer I wrote about past perfect. You can review the series I wrote here:

http://upgradeenglish.blogspot.com/2009/06/they-hadnt-expected-weekend-business-to.html

The curry tasted much better today. The flavor was deeper and more savory. However, I made such a big pot that I'll be eating bean curry again tomorrow.

If I hadn't made such a big pot, I wouldn't have to eat it again tomorrow.

• savory　香ばしい・芳しい・セボリー (definition from jmdict)

There's past perfect again. This time, it's a "third conditional" sentence. I wrote about them last summer, too. Review here:

http://upgradeenglish.blogspot.com/2009/06/if-i-had-stayed-out-bit-longer-this.html