take time有二种用法：主语是人，主语是sth或不定式。

当主语是人的时候，句型为：take (the) time to do sth. 此时take的意思为“use", 不定式为目的状语，而不是time的定语。time前的定冠词可有可无。也可以在time前加限定词 some, a lot of等。《韦氏高阶》对此用法的释义和例句如下：

take (the) time to do something

: to use an amount of time in order to do something important

• They never took the time to get to know her.

• Take (the) time to think about it before you make a decision.

• I took some time to think about it, and my answer is still “no.”

当主语为sth或不定式时，句型为take time. 此时take的意思是”need", time前不可用定冠词，但可以加限定词some, a lot of等。《韦氏高级》对此用法的释义和例句如下：

take time

◊ People say that something takes some/no (etc.) time to describe how much time is needed for something to happen or be done.

• You have to be patient. Things like this take time. [=things like this cannot be done quickly]

• It may take some time for the medication to wear off.

• The meeting won't take too much time. [=the meeting will be short]

• This project will take a lot of time.

所以，网友的第一个疑问中，定冠词是可有可无的。用了并不是错误。

网友的第二个质疑是有道理的。主从句都是过去时态，表示过去的习惯。whenever从句表达的实际上是：whenever there was something I couldn't understand 的意思，而不是 whenever there was nothing I could understand.的意思。所以，应该将anything 改为 something。