Preface for Rampen
By Jens Allmer
(Updated: May 7, 2026)For a long time, I have had a story in my mind that I think is worth telling. For whatever reason, I never got around to telling it. I have been trying to learn Dutch for the last couple of years. I went from reading (so similar to German, my native tongue, that I could grasp most everything very quickly) to understanding (took some more effort) quickly enough. However, speaking posed a problem, and before I had a language friend (Dutch: taalmatje), I didn’t really speak much. That changed quickly after some practice. I moved within the Netherlands and found a new taalmatje who recently started requiring me to write small texts before we meet so that we have something to discuss. Instead of writing about trite everyday events, I gave the book a go. This means that once a week, I write a small part of the book, discuss it with my taalmatje, fix the mistakes, and post it here. It will take some time before the trilogy will be finished. Until then, enjoy!
The story is in Dutch, but you could use your browser’s translation facility. Whether it is idiomatic (translates idioms among languages), I don’t know.