It's important to speak Ladino at home and in our daily lives. Making a home language nest is an effective way to do both. Choose a room for your nest:
What is a home language nest?
A home language nest is a designated room in the home where you commit to speaking Ladino regularly (and as much as possible). The at-home language nesting method was developed by Dr. Zeke Zahir (Puyallup) for the revitalization of the Lushootseed language spoken in the Pacific Northwest, where it has helped countless learners become advanced and regular speakers of the language. Mashallah!
Request a kit
If you live in the United States, you can request a free boxed kit of home language nesting materials for Ladino. The kit includes:
For a kitchen nest: a complete set of 22 cards (5x7 inches)
For a bathroom nest: a small pilot set of 7 cards (5x7 inches), including some designed for those with children
A make-your-own-domain card for each room
Sticky tack for safely attaching the cards to surfaces
A printed how-to guide
The request form is available in English, Turkish, and Spanish. (During Summer 2025, residents of Türkiye and Spain could also request kits.)
We hope to be able to provide kits to those in other countries in the near future!
Good news!
Fevrero 2026: Join a 6-week online beginner Ladino course that will use Ladino en Kaza as one of its learning tools (you will receive a nesting kit as part of your registration fee). Offered through New Lehrhaus.
Janvier 2026: Want to make Sephardic recipes in your kitchen language nest and read them in Ladino? We have added an original, handwritten recipe in Ladino for potato borekas from Rachel Shemarya (born 1898) of Rhodes. The recipe is accompanied by transcription, translation, and commentary courtesy of Rachel's son Al, Ty Alhadeff and the University of Washington's Sephardic Studies Program at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.
Noviembre 2025: Ladino en Kaza resources are now available with Turkish as the translation language in addition to English! See the "Türkçe" tab under the navigation menu at the top. Reushita buena and mersi muncho to UC Berkeley undergraduate Ece Tabag for her hard work on this!
Oktubre 2025: The very first cohort of learners with Ladino language nests in their homes began! The cohort meets weekly to support each other in their nesting process and to speak and learn Ladino together.
Oktubre 2025: An academic article was published about Ladino en Kaza in a special issue of the journal Letras Hispanas about Sephardic and Judeo-Spanish studies: Ladino en Kaza: The Promise of At-Home Language Nesting as a Revitalization Method for Ladino.
Septiembre 2025: Ladino en Kaza domain cards were featured as part of the exhibit Tu Ke Bivas at Brandeis University, which explored how photo-based artist Becky Behar has maintained Ladino, Sephardic customs, and Judaism across three generations of women in her family. (Pictured right.)
Mayo 2025: A public-facing article was published about the project in the blog of the Center for Language and Literature Education at Karlstad Unversity: Carving Out Space for Minoritized Languages: At-Home Language Nesting in Ladino.
Avril 2025: American Ladino League (ALL) named Ladino en Kaza its Manadero del Mez (Resource of the Month)!
If you are interested in at-home language nesting for the language you work with, please use and enjoy the following templates of the materials used in this project. You will need to create an account on Canva (free). These are special "template" links that allow you to edit and adapt them as much as you please, without affecting the original files.
You are also welcome to use this website as inspiration for a similar website for your language community. Let's not reinvent the wheel! Reach out with any questions to julia.peck@berkeley.edu, and tell me if you end up using these resources— I'd love to keep track.
Template for cards for a kitchen language nest
Template for cards for a bathroom language nest
Template for a home nesting instruction manual