Alegrar Conjugation in Spanish
Introduction
alegrar means "to make happy" in English, and it is one of the verbs you will meet constantly in everyday Spanish — for making someone happy. Learning it properly means more than memorising one form: the verb changes across thirteen tenses, and this page gives you every one of them, with the exact forms from the VerbFlow engine, so you can check any person or tense in seconds. Alegrar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. That matters because the patterns on this page are the patterns you will reuse every time you speak or write. Work through the tables first, then read the notes under each tense — they explain when to use each tense and what to watch out for with this verb in particular. A natural example is: A Lucía le alegra la buena noticia. — "The the good news makes happy Lucía." Once you can say that sentence confidently, try changing the person and the tense using the tables below.
Quick facts
| Infinitive | alegrar |
| Translation | to make happy |
| Verb type | Regular -ar verb |
| Gerund | alegrando |
| Past participle | alegrado |
| Auxiliary | haber (all compound tenses) |
| Irregular tenses | regular in every tense |
Gustar-like verb: the thing that causes the feeling is the subject, and the person who feels it is the indirect object (a Lucía le alegra la buena noticia). The verb agrees with the thing, not with the person — that is why the él/ella form appears so often with this verb.
Full conjugation of alegrar
Present indicative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegro |
| tú | alegras |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegra |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegráis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegran |
Preterite
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegré |
| tú | alegraste |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegró |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegrasteis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegraron |
Imperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegraba |
| tú | alegrabas |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegraba |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegrábamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegrabais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegraban |
Future
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegraré |
| tú | alegrarás |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegrará |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegraremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegraréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegrarán |
Conditional
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegraría |
| tú | alegrarías |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegraría |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegraríamos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegraríais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegrarían |
Present subjunctive
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegre |
| tú | alegres |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegre |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegren |
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | alegrara |
| tú | alegraras |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegrara |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegráramos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegrarais |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegraran |
Present perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | he alegrado |
| tú | has alegrado |
| él / ella / Ud. | ha alegrado |
| nosotros / nosotras | hemos alegrado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habéis alegrado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | han alegrado |
Pluperfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | había alegrado |
| tú | habías alegrado |
| él / ella / Ud. | había alegrado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habíamos alegrado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habíais alegrado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habían alegrado |
Future perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habré alegrado |
| tú | habrás alegrado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habrá alegrado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habremos alegrado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habréis alegrado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrán alegrado |
Conditional perfect
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| yo | habría alegrado |
| tú | habrías alegrado |
| él / ella / Ud. | habría alegrado |
| nosotros / nosotras | habríamos alegrado |
| vosotros / vosotras | habríais alegrado |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | habrían alegrado |
Imperative — affirmative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | alegra |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegre |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegrad |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegren |
Imperative — negative
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| tú | alegres |
| él / ella / Ud. | alegre |
| nosotros / nosotras | alegremos |
| vosotros / vosotras | alegréis |
| ellos / ellas / Uds. | alegren |
Gerund: alegrando · Past participle: alegrado
Alegrar in every tense — notes and examples
Present indicative
The present is the tense for habits, facts and what is happening now. It is the first tense to master, because the present subjunctive and the affirmative imperative are both built from the present yo form. Example: A Lucía le alegra la buena noticia. — "The the good news makes happy Lucía."
Preterite
The preterite is for completed actions in the past — things that started and finished at a definite moment. Use it for a single event, a sequence of events, or an action with a clear end. Example: Ayer, a Lucía le alegró la buena noticia. — "Yesterday, the the good news made happy Lucía."
Imperfect
The imperfect is for the past without a definite end: habits, background scenes, descriptions and actions in progress when something else happened. It never states when the action finished. Example: Antes, a Lucía le alegraba la buena noticia. — "Before, the the good news made happy Lucía."
Future
The future is for what will happen, and also for guesses about the present ("I wonder if…"). For regular verbs it is the infinitive plus the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án. Example: Mañana, a Lucía le alegrará la buena noticia. — "Tomorrow, the the good news will make happy Lucía."
Conditional
The conditional is for what would happen — polite requests, hypothetical results and reported expectations. It shares its stem with the future, so any irregular future stem appears here too. Example: A Lucía le alegraría la buena noticia si lo viera. — "The the good news would make happy Lucía if she saw it."
Present subjunctive
The present subjunctive is for wishes, doubts, emotions and other non-facts after que, and after expressions such as ojalá, es importante que or no creo que. It is not a tense for stating facts. Example: Espero que a Lucía le alegre la buena noticia. — "I hope the the good news makes happy Lucía."
Imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms)
The imperfect subjunctive (-ra forms) is for wishes and doubts about the past, and for the if-part of hypothetical sentences (si + imperfect subjunctive, conditional). This page shows the -ra forms from the engine. Example: Si a Lucía le alegrara la buena noticia, sonreiría. — "If the the good news made happy Lucía, she would smile."
Present perfect
The present perfect (haber + past participle) is for past actions connected to the present — recent events, experience, or something that has just happened. The auxiliary is always haber. Example: A Lucía le ha alegrado la buena noticia. — "The the good news has made happy Lucía."
Pluperfect
The pluperfect (había + past participle) is the past of the past: something that had already happened before another past event. Example: A Lucía le había alegrado la buena noticia. — "The the good news had made happy Lucía."
Future perfect
The future perfect (habré + past participle) is for something that will already be finished by a future moment, or for a guess about the past. It is less common in speech than the simple future. Example: A Lucía le habrá alegrado la buena noticia. — "The the good news will have made happy Lucía."
Conditional perfect
The conditional perfect (habría + past participle) is for what would have happened — the past of the conditional, used for regrets and unreal past conditions. Example: A Lucía le habría alegrado la buena noticia. — "The the good news would have made happy Lucía."
Imperative — affirmative
The affirmative imperative is for direct orders, instructions and invitations. The tú form comes from the present él/ella form, and the formal, nosotros and plural forms come from the present subjunctive. Example: ¡alegre a los niños con la buena noticia, por favor! — "Please make happy the children with the the good news!"
Imperative — negative
The negative imperative (no + subjunctive) is for telling someone not to do something. All five persons come from the present subjunctive, which is why they look different from the affirmative tú form. Example: No alegres a los niños con la buena noticia. — "Do not make happy the children with the the good news."
Example sentences with alegrar
A Lucía le alegra la buena noticia. — "The the good news makes happy Lucía."
A Lucía y a Juan les alegran su visita inesperada. — "The his unexpected visit make happy Lucía and Juan."
Ayer, a Lucía le alegró la buena noticia. — "Yesterday, the the good news made happy Lucía."
Ayer, a todos les alegraron su visita inesperada. — "Yesterday, the his unexpected visit made happy everyone."
De niña, a Lucía le alegraba la buena noticia. — "As a child, the the good news made happy Lucía."
Mañana, a Lucía le alegrará su visita inesperada. — "Tomorrow, the his unexpected visit will make happy Lucía."
A Lucía le alegraría la buena noticia si pudiera verlo. — "The the good news would make happy Lucía if she could see it."
A Lucía le ha alegrado la buena noticia muchas veces. — "The the good news has made happy Lucía many times."
Espero que a Lucía le alegre la buena noticia. — "I hope the the good news makes happy Lucía."
La historia me está alegrando ahora mismo. — "The story is making happy me right now."
Common mistakes with alegrar
1. Dropping the accent on the preterite yo form
The preterite yo form is alegré — with the accent. Without it the word is misspelled, and in some verbs the accent is the only thing separating one tense from another.
2. Confusing alegrar with animar (to encourage, to cheer up)
alegrar means "to make happy", while animar means "to encourage, to cheer up". They overlap in English but they are not interchangeable in Spanish: use alegrar when you mean making someone happy, and animar for its own meaning. Check the conjugation of animar before choosing.
3. Mixing up the preterite and the imperfect
Ayer yo alegré la buena noticia (preterite: one finished event yesterday) is not the same as antes yo alegraba la buena noticia (imperfect: what used to happen). If you can add "yesterday" or "last week", you usually want the preterite; if you can add "used to", you want the imperfect.
4. Saying ✗ yo alegro when you mean the feeling
With verbs like alegrar the thing that causes the feeling is the subject, and the person is the indirect object: a Lucía le alegra la buena noticia. Saying yo alegro la buena noticia means you do the make happying, which is not what you mean here.
5. Forgetting that the verb agrees with the thing, not the person
Me alegran su visita inesperada is correct when the subject is plural — the verb agrees with his unexpected visit, not with "me". Singular me alegra su visita inesperada would be wrong with a plural subject.
Quiz: alegrar
1. A Lucía le ___ la buena noticia.
a. alegro b. alegra c. alegran
2. Ayer, a Lucía le ___ la buena noticia.
a. alegro b. alegró c. alegra
3. Antes, a Lucía le ___ la buena noticia.
a. alegro b. alegraba c. alegra
4. Mañana, a Lucía le ___ la buena noticia.
a. alegro b. alegrará c. alegra
5. A Lucía le ___ la buena noticia si lo viera.
a. alegro b. alegraría c. alegra
6. Espero que a Lucía le ___ la buena noticia.
a. alegro b. alegre c. alegra
7. A Lucía le ___ la buena noticia varias veces.
a. alegro b. ha alegrado c. alegra
8. Me ___ su visita inesperada.
a. alegro b. alegran c. alegra
9. La historia me está ___ ahora mismo.
a. alegrado b. alegrando c. alegra
10. A Lucía le ha ___ la buena noticia muchas veces.
a. alegrando b. alegrado c. alegra
Answer key
alegra — present tense, él/ella form — the thing is the subject.
alegró — preterite, él/ella form — one finished event yesterday.
alegraba — imperfect, él/ella form — a past habit or background.
alegrará — future, él/ella form.
alegraría — conditional, él/ella form — a hypothetical.
alegre — present subjunctive after 'espero que'.
ha alegrado — present perfect, él/ella form (haber + participle).
alegran — present tense, ellos/ellas form — plural subject, so plural verb.
alegrando — gerund — the progressive is estar + gerund.
alegrado — past participle — the present perfect is haber + participle.
Frequently asked questions about alegrar
What does alegrar mean in English?
Alegrar means "to make happy". It is used for making someone happy. A simple example is yo alegro la buena noticia — "I make happy the good news."
Is alegrar regular or irregular?
Alegrar is a regular -ar verb verb, and it is regular in every tense. The forms that most often catch learners out are the present yo form alegro, the preterite yo form alegré and the past participle alegrado — learn those three first, then fill in the rest from the tables above.
What is the gerund and the past participle of alegrar?
The gerund is alegrando (used for the progressive: estoy alegrando) and the past participle is alegrado (used with haber in all perfect tenses: he alegrado). Both forms are used constantly, so they are worth memorising on their own.
How do I say "I make happy" in the past?
It depends on the meaning. For one finished action use the preterite: ayer yo alegré la buena noticia — "yesterday I made happy the good news". For a past habit or background use the imperfect: antes yo alegraba la buena noticia — "before, I made happy the good news". The mistake most learners make is using one for the other.
Does alegrar take the subjunctive?
Not usually. Alegrar on its own takes the indicative — yo alegro la buena noticia. You will meet the subjunctive with alegrar only inside a larger construction that itself triggers it, such as no creo que or es importante que, and then the subjunctive form is alegre.