French language Q&A Forum

For some verbs like passer, monter etc there's a rule: 

When a verb is followed immediately by a noun (as opposed to a preposition), it uses avoir as the auxiliary, like most verbs.

But in the book « Les verbes et leurs prépositions » (by Jean-Michel Robert, Isabelle Chollet) there's a note for the verb convenir:

Le verbe convenir se conjugue avec l’auxiliaire avoir lorsqu’il a le sens de « plaire, être appro­prié à », avec l’auxiliaire être lorsqu’il signifie « décider ensemble ».

So I'm confused. What would be the right choice in the following case?

1. La date que vous m’aviez proposée ne m’a pas convenu.

2. La date que vous m’aviez proposée ne m’est pas convenue.

From the one side, here convenir means « plaire, être appro­prié à », therefore it shoud be conjugated with avoir.

From the other side, there's no COD here: "La date" is the subject and "me" is COI, so être should be used.

In the sentence,"Selon les témoins que j'ai interviewés, et aussi incroyable que cela paraisse, un hélicoptère se serait posé dans la cour de promenade de la prison et La Fuite serait monté à bord avant qu'il ne redécolle, tout ça en quelques minutes à peine !", I don't understand the use of the present tense of redécoller when we are discussing something that happened in the past in particular when it is preceded by two past perfect verbs, se poser and monter.  Also, why is ne inserted before redécoller?

Hi,I'm doing B1 French and I generally understand the use of the subjunctive but got tripped up recently. The first example was " we want someone to guide us".  ..."on veut que quelqu'un nous guide'

Am I right on thinking the subjunctive is guid+e relating to "on" which is 3rd person singular and therefore guide+e. Of course the " on veut que" demands the subjunctive.

In the second example " He wants that we guide him," ( Il veut que nous le guidions), the Subjunctive ending is guid+ions  relating to "nous" which is 1st person plural therefore ends in "ions".

What adds to the confusion is that "on veut" is conjugated like "Il or "elle" but in informal use " on" can mean " we" which is "nous" in French.  I hope I have explained everything well ( and as an aside j'éspere is not a Subjunctive trigger in the affirmative but is in the negative) so you may see why it's so difficult sometimes. Any comments gratefully received.

In “et je ne connais pas bien la ville.” it sounds like “bien a ville”. There is no hint of an “l” sound. At least to my ears. This might also be what Jean meant.