syntax - Is this sentence structured correctly?

こんにちは! I'm new to this site and Japanese language. I haven't learnt the entire Hiragana alphabet yet and don't know any Katakana. I'm trying my best to stay away from Romaji, so please be aware that I am working at a very basic level!

I want to be able to understand the structure of sentences, first and foremost. I have been told that Japanese sentences are structured using SOV.

Is this sentence correct? If so, could it be improved? If not, where did I go wrong?

わたし は にほんご へた

As far as I know, it translates to '[Subject] - I am / [Object] - Japanese / [Verb] - bad at'

Thanks!

Answer

Regarding the comments on your posted answer:

I think @sombrero's examples may be confusing you because he uses です in two different ways. Let's start simply:

これは犬{いぬ}です
As for this, dog is
This is a dog

In this sentence です is indispensible. It means 'is'. Dog is a noun. Whenever we want to say something is a noun we use です.

私の日本語は下手です
As for my Japanese, poor is
My Japanese is poor

Again です is indispensible. In English 'poor' is an adjective. However, in Japanese it is something called a na-adjective which behaves a little differently. When a na-adjective is not directly modifying a noun (e.g. hetana hito, unskillful person) it behaves like a noun. Hence we have the 'something is noun' structure again and we must use です to mean 'is'.

Now let's take one of @sombrero's examples.

This apple is red = このりんごは赤{あか}いです

Red is an adjective in English. In Japanese 赤い is something called an i-adjective. Unlike English these adjectives have the word 'is' built in to them. So

このりんごは赤{あか}い

is a complete perfectly grammatical sentence which contains the meaning 'is'.

So why did @sombrero add a です to the end? It's because です has another meaning. It can be put after an i-adjective to make the sentence polite. In this usage です cannot be translated. It just changes the tone of the sentence without adding extra words/meaning. Without です the sentence is correct but informal.

Regarding @dainichi's answer, it seems that the Japanese love to miss out as many words/particles as they can. It is good to know this for comprehension but at this stage in your studies you should not be doing this. Only start to drop words/particles when you have a firm understanding of the grammar and have become familiar with the contexts in which natives drop them.