complacer means: to please, to satisfy
Click to see all conjugation charts of complacer in every tense

In this Spanish conjugation lesson we will learn how to conjugate the verb complacer in the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto tense of the Indicativo mood. It means we will see step by step how to create and translate forms of each grammatical person.

How to translate Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto to English

Notice that the English phrases provided below next to each conjugation are not direct translations from Spanish to English. They are usually the closest general equivalents. The example differences are:

• In Spanish conjugation, there is the form usted in the third person singular. But this person does not translate to the English third person singular. It translates to the so called formal you and uses the inflected form which is most often represented as he/she/it in English conjugation charts.
• Similar situation happens in the third person plural, where ustedes translates to the English plural formal you but uses the form which corresponds to the they form in English.
• Tenses are used differently in Spanish and English, so the actual translation should always take into account the context and focus on translating the meaning, not just words.
• In both languages each verb may have multiple meanings and not every meaning translates directly to the other language. Here also, the context and focusing on the particular meaning helps to create the most accurate translation.

Step by step instructions

Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto is a compound tense (Spanish: compuesto). It means that all of its inflected forms consist of two words. In Spanish language, there are also simple tenses, where each inflected verb form is one word long.

A compound tense is indicated by the ending of the auxiliary verb, not by the ending of the main verb, which is the case in Spanish simple tenses.In the compound tenses, every person’s form consist of two parts:

• An inflected form of the auxiliary verb haber. In case of the Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto de Indicativo tense, we use the Presente de Indicativo (Present) conjugation of haber
• Past Participle, which is always the same in every compound tense for a given verb

See the conjugation charts and this haber conjugation lesson to learn how to conjugate the auxiliary verb haber. That’s a separate topic, so for brevity we’re focusing on the parts derived from complacer only here.In order to create the Participio form, we need a stem and an ending. We use the stem of the infinitive of the main verb, and a single ending, which depends on the conjugation group of the main verb. So we have to begin by splitting the infinitive into a stem and an ending. It’s very easy to do – simply remove two letters from the end of the infinitive form to get the ending – one of -ar, -er, -ir. What’s left is the stem.So in case of the verb complacer it’s easy to see that:

• the stem is: complac-
• and the ending is: -er

Based on the ending of the infinitive we can tell that complacer belongs to the -er verb group. This group, in turn, uses the -ido ending in its Participio form. Putting all that together, our Participio is: complacido.

Now, as we understand how both parts used by this tense are created separately, let’s move on with creating the final conjugation forms. In order to create the first person singular form, we simply take the first person singular form of haber conjugated in Presente de Indicativo, which is he. And to that we add the Participio complacido to get he complacido:

• yo he complacido – I have pleased

Next, to create the form for the second person singular, we again simply take the second person singular form of haber from the Presente de Indicativo tense, and that is has. To this auxiliary verb we add the Participio complacido (so the exact same word as previously) to get has complacido:

• tú has complacido – you have pleased

Similarly, if we want to create the form for the third person singular, we conjugate haber in the Presente tense and we utilize the corresponding person’s form (third person singular), namely ha. Then we also take the same Participio as for all other persons, and putting them together we get ha complacido:

• él ha complacido – he has pleased
• ella ha complacido – she has pleased
• usted ha complacido – (formal) you have pleased

The first person plural has the form hemos complacido. It’s created by following the same logic as in the other persons. We first take the form of the first person plural from haber conjugation in the Presente de Indicativo tense: hemos. Second, and to this word we again add the Participio of complacer: complacido to get hemos complacido:

• nosotros hemos complacido – we have pleased
• nosotras hemos complacido – (feminine) we have pleased

Again, let’s do the same for the second person plural. We have to get the inflected form of the verb haber in the Presente de Indicativo tense, second person plural, and it is habéis. Next, we take our unchanged Participio, we join them, and we get habéis complacido:

• vosotros habéis complacido – (plural) you have pleased
• vosotras habéis complacido – (feminine, plural) you have pleased

And finally, the last grammatical person on the list, the third person plural, has the form han complacido. We create it in the exact same manner as in all the other grammatical persons. We need the third person plural of haber first, from its Presente conjugation. It is han. We add the Participio of complacer again (complacido) to get han complacido:

• ellos han complacido – they have pleased
• ellas han complacido – (feminine) they have pleased
• ustedes han complacido – (formal, plural) you have pleased

That’s it! The conjugation is now done. Put together, the conjugation chart looks like this:

yo	he complacido	I have pleased
tú	has complacido	you have pleased
él/ella/usted	ha complacido	he/she/it has pleased
nosotros/nosotras	hemos complacido	we have pleased
vosotros/vosotras	habéis complacido	you have pleased
ellos/ellas/ustedes	han complacido	they have pleased

Click to see all conjugation charts of complacer in every tense
But do not end your session yet – it is very important to repeat and practice the material in order to remember it. Check below for next steps.

Next Steps to Perfection To practice this conjugation and test your knowledge check this Conjugation Exercise or the Memory Game To see other conjugation lessons for this verb choose another tense: PresentePretéritoImperfectoCondicionalFuturoPretérito PluscuamperfectoFuturo PerfectoCondicional PerfectoPretérito Perfecto Compuesto (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto A (subjuntivo)Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto B (subjuntivo)Futuro Perfecto (subjuntivo)  For exercises and examples related to complacer visit our Exercise section To see conjugation charts in all tenses for complacer visit the Conjugator To explore other learning materials visit the Study section

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