How can 若い時 and ずっと work in this sentence?


I'm trying to write

> "I have wanted to study Japanese from a young age"

And I have

> "若い時に私は日本語をずっと勉強したいです."

Does this work? How can I make it more correct?




Your usage of ずっと is just fine, but there are some other errors. A minimally
corrected version is:

> 若い時 **から** 私は日本語をずっと勉強 **したかったです** 。

  * に refers to one time point in the past. But your desire is a longstanding one that have remained even after you were no longer 若い. So you should use から ("from") instead.
  * Your desire basically belongs to the past, so you need to use the past-form of 勉強したいです.

Optionally, you can express your longstanding desire up until now using ～ている,
which is a way to express the continuation of an action. したい is an adjectival
expression that does not straightforwardly connect to ている, but you can add と思う
and say:

> 若い時から私は日本語をずっと勉強したい **と思っていました** 。

This one is longer, but sounds more sophisticated and natural to me.




Your usage of ずっと is just fine, but there are some other errors. A minimally
corrected version is:

> 若い時 **から** 私は日本語をずっと勉強 **したかったです** 。

  * に refers to one time point in the past. But your desire is a longstanding one that have remained even after you were no longer 若い. So you should use から ("from") instead.
  * Your desire basically belongs to the past, so you need to use the past-form of 勉強したいです.

Optionally, you can express your longstanding desire up until now using ～ている,
which is a way to express the continuation of an action. したい is an adjectival
expression that does not straightforwardly connect to ている, but you can add と思う
and say:

> 若い時から私は日本語をずっと勉強したい **と思っていました** 。

This one is longer, but sounds more sophisticated and natural to me.

