Can you look over this email I'm going to send to see if it makes sense?
 

I'm sending it to someone I don't know so I aimed for it to be formal, but not TOO formal.
Can someone do a quick look over and tell me if it all looks ok, or if some things need to be changed?

Here's the email:

(AUTHOR NAME) さまへ

私の名前はリアムです。19歳なイグリス人の男の人です� ��
去年日本に行った時で、’(TITLE)’の日本語の本を買い� �した。　イグリスに帰ってから、読みました。
とても、とてもすごいな本だと思いました！その気持ち だから、(TITLE)は私の一番好きな本になりました。

次な日本に行く時に、あなたを会いたいでも、あなたは たぶんすごく忙しいですね。

私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！

これを読んでくれてありがとうございます！
リアム


Obviously where I've put the English words in brackets I'm going to exchange them for Japanese in the email that I'll send. :D

Particular sentences/parts that I want checked are:

19歳なイグリス人の男の人です。
その気持ちだから、
私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！
これを読んでくれてありがとうございます！

Thanks for any help anyone can give! :D

EDIT: I don't know if a few question marks in diamonds have shown up for the rest of you, but if they did, the ones after the 'desu' on the first line are just meant to be a full stop, and the other ones are meant to be the hiragana for 'ma' :S

Oh and it may be helpful for you to have the English of what I was attempting to say, so here it is:

Dear (AUTHOR)

My name is Liam. I am a 19 year old British man.
Last year when I went to Japan, I bought the Japanese language (version) of your book, (TITLE). After I returned to Britain, I read it.
I thought it was a very, very great book! Because of that feeling, (TITLE) became my favourite book.

Next time I go to Japan I'd like to meet you, but you are probably very busy, right?

Sorry if my Japanese is bad!

Thank you very much for reading this!
Liam

There certainly are mistakes, plenty of them to be honest, but I see no point in correcting them when you yourself are saying 私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい.

I will correct two. The first one will be totally unacceptable and the second one will look too funny because it's your own country's name.

あなた　＞ Unacceptable. Use 「family name + 先生」

イグリス　＞　イギリス

Thanks for those. I've altered the major one and the minor one. And wow, 'gu' instead of 'gi' was really a total basic screw-up on my part :o

Are there any more major ones, or are they all minor from here on out?

If you or anyone else reading can tell me any more then I'd REALLY appreciate it. :D

Basically there are a few errors and more awkward phrasings that make you sound non-native.

That being said, the meaning is completely understandable; I didn't have to look at your English translation at all. Were I a Japanese artist, I would be enthused to get the letter just the way you've written it. It means more when it looks like you tried your hardest to express yourself!

Masaegu, would you agree with the notion that saying

私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！

is a little weird?

I would say

私の日本語が下手だから、ごめんなさい！

In other words, instead of qualifying it by saying "If my Japanese is strange, then I am sorry," saying "My Japanese is strange, so I am sorry."

My feeling is that "If... then I am sorry" statements aren't genuine. So if it isn't true, you aren't sorry? Either you are sorry or you are not. Is this also true in Japanese?

Good question.　I didn't even notice that one on my first read through, which is probably because it was already in the context of not natively written Japanese. The whole letter sounds "foreign" to me from the very first sentence 「私の名前はリアムです。」. Isn't that straight out of Japanese textbooks used outside of Japan? It isn't something we would ever say.

The sentence 「私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい。」　actual ly is weird because it can imply that the speaker feels his Japanese is pretty good.

Not that OP should sound like a native speaker, a native speaker would phrase this as:
「下手な日本語で失礼します。」
「下手な日本語でお許しください。」
or if I had to use ごめんなさい
「日本語が下手なので、ごめんなさい。」

I agree with your notion of the combination of だったら and ごめんなさい being less than genuine even though I must admit that some Japanese-speakers would actually use the combo in informal speech if they aren't paying attention to what they are saying.

Hi masaegu san, do you mind translating the above phrases you wrote into English for my understanding?

What do you think, Maxful?

They both mean "Excuse me for my poor Japanese."

マサエグさん、ありがとうございました。:)