下手(へた)と苦手(にがて)

Question about Japanese
下手(へた)と苦手(にがて)はどうちがいますか

Answer:
See Figure 1 below.

Assume that there is a person (John) and a target. The target can be anything, for example; running, swimming, cooking, a job, another person, etc.

When he does some action to the target, he gets some feeling from a response from it.

Basically, the difference between “下手” and “苦手” is as follows:
“下手(へた)” is an evaluation word for skill.
“苦手(にがて)” is an explanatory word for feeling.

“下手” is used by another person for evaluating John’s skill. Such as:

Another person(Kelly) can say her evaluation of John’s skill as:
Kelly: Johnは泳ぐのが下手だ。( John is bad at swimming)

As opposed to that, “苦手” is used by John for explaining his own feeling. Such as:

John: 私は泳ぐのが苦手です。(I feel bad about swimming)

Basic meanings are shown as above.
However, actually Japanese use those two words interchangeably.
Therefore, all of following four expressions are natural.
1. John: 私は泳ぐのが下手です。I’m bad at swimming.
2. John: 私は泳ぐのが苦手です。I feel bad about swimming.
3. Kelly: John は泳ぐのが下手だ。 John is bad at swimming.
4. Kelly: John は泳ぐのが苦手だ。 John is bad at swimming.

Note the 4th sentence. Kelly cannot know John’s feeling without any explanation from him, so “苦手” in Kelly’s saying means same as “下手”.

Despite the above examples, “下手” and “苦手” are different words which explain different aspects.
Therefore, the following sentence is a natural expression in Japanese.

John: 私は泳ぐのが下手ですが、苦手ではありません。好きです。
　　　I’m bad at swimming, but I don’t dislike it. I like it.