The time factor.



    Another  obstacle  that  seems  to  stand  in  the  way  of  those  wanting  to  pursue  a  second  language  is  the  argument  that  it  takes  more, in  terms  of  the  time  spent  to  learn  a  foreign  language  as  compared  to  other  careers. What  I  found  from  personal  experience  was  that  first  of  all, just  like  in  any  other  endeavor, it  is  necessary  to  invest  a  good  amount  of  time  in  language  studies. However, there’s  no  provision  that  one  has  to  spend  more  time  pursuing  a  second  language  as  compared  to  other  fields. Actually, the  key  lies  in  the  quality  and  not  quantity  of  time  spent. Once  you  embark  on  studying  a  language, you’re  going  to  learn  that  there  are  areas  where  you  are  strong  and  others  where  you  need  to  improve. Let  me  use  a  specific  example  to  illustrate  this point. If  for  example, you  realize  that  when  it  comes  to  the  conjugation  of  verbs, you  perform  better  with  conjugating  in the  subjunctive, but  you  are  struggling  with  the  imperfect  tenses, then  you  ought  to  spend  more  time  studying  how  to  improve  in  dealing  with  the  imperfect  tense conjugations. Isolating  areas  of  strength/weaknesses  will  help  you  allocate  your  time  in  the  most  productive  way. I  hope  that  my  explanation  above  helps  dispel  the ‘myth’ that  language  studies  demand  more  time  than  other  fields. It’s  all  about  zeroing  in  and  identifying  your  area  of  weakness, once  you  do  this  then  you’ll  be  able  to  plan  the  amount  of  time  that  you  need  to  dedicate  to  each  area.


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