I am not native in English. I speak and I write fair enough to be understood by everybody, but, obviously, I do make mistakes.
I am also not able to create very elaborate phrases with lot of twists, so, in a word, I will never be able to write books in English (maybe kids books
).
Now you tell me that i should spend a lot of time to improve my English skills to an academic level only to get some merit points?
Thank you, but no. It's not for me. I have better things to do in my life. If I would have to improve my language skills, i would do it for a better reason than this.
Anyway, I agree that English is a must, but the information contained in typed words is a bigger must.
I would always praise higher the information and not the envelope. If the text can be understood then it is good enough for me.
Grammar skills can always be improved, but if you have something important to say people will understand it with or without grammar mistakes.
If you don't, you can write an entire book, it won't matter.
English is my third language, yet nobody would be able to tell that I'm not a native speaker, even at a research level.
If you want to improve, you will. If you don't, you'll stop paying attention and stagnate in your development.
I do agree with the sentiment that the contents of speech matter far more than the language used and I tend to listen even to people who others would deem to outrageous to be worth the time.
But despite that I think that it's in the best interest of every individual to keep improving throughout their entire life, even if slowly. As long as you make a conscious effort to look out for mistakes and to seek out opportunities to improve you'll benefit greatly in every other area of your life due to the mentality carrying over elsewhere. On the contrary, if you don't have at least some areas in which you make a constant conscious effort to push yourself beyond what you were the day before you will increasingly find yourself looking back at how much time you've wasted and almost inevitably end up frustrated and depressed.
I also agree with the notion that you don't have to study grammar, I've never done so and I wouldn't be able to tell you any rules. As long as you self-correct (with the help of dictionaries and/or Google) and pay close attention to how highly literate people use language you'll keep converging towards perfection.