Everyone who ever journeys by boat, ship or yacht to a foreign country knows what it is like to be confronted with a language barrier. Whether or not you speak the language, you will always run into jargon and nautical concepts that are being used in the inland navigation. This booklet has listed nearly all of them. The booklet has been made in the cabin and is, therefore, developed for practical use. The booklet provides examples of ways to report to a lock or bridge or when entering a port.  Besides these concrete examples, some information and advice is given about the sentence structure and pronunciation.

More and more people on the water plead for the so-called Riverspeak, that would make it possible to have one communication language (English), specifically designed for the inland navigation. As for now, there has only been talking about it but now – specifically because of the first two chapters in this booklet – we hope that we have made a major step towards completing the Riverspeak. This Riverspeak being understood in several languages, the given title of the book was “Riverspeak”. Using the booklet is simple, all nautical concepts and terminology are classified and can be found in the known “inland shipping languages” (English, French, German and Dutch).

In March 2011 we presented the so-called translation booklet for inland navigation and recreational boating. This has proven to be a great success and we received many positive reactions. In March 2013, we introduced the completely renewed second edition of the booklet. This renewed edition has been extended with several chapters including bridge passages and a dictionary. Also, the cargo list has been extended. This second edition is three times the size of the first edition.

Furthermore, a French edition of the booklet was created that also included Dutch pronunciation advices for French.
A Polish edition is also available, here the translation languages are English, German and Dutch, the French translation has been deleted for this edition.                                                                               A Polish and Romanian edition is also available.

The price of the booklet is € 11,99, shipping and administration costs amount to € 1,88 for The Netherlands an € 3,76 for a foreign country.
You can order the booklet on this website or you can transfer € 11,99 + shipping and administration costs to NL90RABO0361910673 BIC:RABONL2U to the name of J. Blonk in Krimpen a/d IJssel. Please state the description as Riverspeak and your address data. If you would like to order the French version, please state FR version in the subject line or Po for the Polish or Ro for the Romanian edition.

N.B. If you would like to order more copies, please request an indication of the shipping costs by sending an email

Thank you very much, Jan Blonk
Ms. Princess
Fort Asperen 32
2926 VG Krimpen aan den Ijssel

More information:
riverspeak@live.nl