English Translation
Whatever you said to him made him feel better.
Whatever you said to him, you have made him feel better.
Whatever you said to him made him feel better.
Whatever you said to him, you have made him feel better.
no, English Present Perfect is not the same as Spanish Pretérito Perfecto!
Does everyone agree?
I do about the essential point, but I think “Whatever you said to him, you made him feel better” is a better translation than the original poster’s suggestion (without the “you.”)
If you were to translate that sentence back to Spanish, would you still use “has animado” instead of “animaste”?
The way I see it, “lo has animado” implies that he’s still feeling better, whereas with “lo animaste”, he could equally now be feeling low again. Anyway, I can’t see any other reason for the Spanish sentence to use two different tenses.