French language Q&A Forum

For "they always made me feel" the answer is "ils m'ont toujours fait" which is passé composé.  Seems to me this is a continuous action in the past so it should be the imparfait "ils me toujours faisaient." 

For

J'ai eu peur que nous ________ trop tard

I answered "ne soyons arrivés" but this was marked wrong. "Soyons arrivés" was given as corrrect.

Am I missing something with the expletive "ne" (which I do find a bit confusing!)  Could you explain?

Thanks in advance,

Ian

In the A1 writing challenge "Learning the guitar" the question

"because I find that it's a soothing instrument"

suggests the answer

"car je trouve cet instrument apaisant."

which I can see is very elegant but why is my answer incorrect:

"car je la trouve d'être un instrument apaisant"

I can find other examples on the web of similar usage such this:

"...que nous avons trouvé d'être un trait distinctif..."