A sentence which I used a lot when I was younger. But this is not something extraordinary, this sentence is used by a lot of people, the younger ones use it as well as the older ones. It is also common to find these statements on the internet. During my volunteering service I visited many schools and talked with a lot of students. Most of the time the started or ended the conversation with sorry for my English and I always wonder why the say this. But it is not only for the students also the teacher uses it quite a lot. I always thought you don’t have to apologize for that. But why is it like this?
I started to really dislike this sentence because it putts the skills of yourself down. English is not the mother tongue for most of the people it is the second languages or even the third language for some people. We must learn it, and what is the best way to learn something? To learn from your mistakes, to make a progress you must know your mistakes and work on them and with a language it is easy to make mistakes, because there is a variety of grammar rules, vocabulary, pronunciation. It is natural to make mistakes, and it is nothing to be ashamed. The main aim to learn a foreign language is communication. To have a conversation you must understand each other. In my point of view this is the essential part of knowing a foreign language. Therefore, you don’t have to be perfect in that language.
I remember when I was younger, I was also afraid of speaking in English, because I thought I am not good enough and make way too many mistakes and that the people will make fun about it. Fortunately, that’s was not the case. The same applies for further languages I learned, French in school and now I am learning polish. In both languages I know little to nothing about grammar rules, but I can have conversations in these languages. They may be not that meaningful, but it is a start. People are always happy to see when you try to speak in their language, and they accept that you make mistakes. Because everybody knows that their mother tongue has a lot of complicated grammar rules and even though native make also mistakes in their language. In the end most people acknowledge the effort someone put in learning a foreign language.
So, don’t be afraid of it, just use it without thinking to much about it, in the end it is all about understanding each other and for that we don’t need a lot of vocabulary or grammar rules. Body language is an important part, you can read the emotions from the other person face and react to it.