Halting means stopping and starting, and lacking fluency. Halting speech, a halting reply, halting progress.
It is not a criticism of the person so much as a description of the difficulty — halting English is what anybody speaks in a new language, and the word carries some sympathy. It comes from an old sense of halt meaning to limp.
1adjectivehaltingStopping and starting, and lacking fluency.
“She gave a halting speech, stopping often to wipe her eyes.”
halting is a quality of speech.
Proto-West Germanic
*haltōn
Old English
healtian — to be lame, walk with a limp
Middle English
halten
English
halt
English, today
halting
halt comes from Middle English halten, from Old English healtian (“to be lame, walk with a limp”), from Proto-West Germanic haltōn, related to halt. English usage in the sense of 'make a halt' is from the noun. Cognate with frr halte, Swedish halta.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA