I recently started as a PhD candidate at Utrecht University. As someone who has an abiding, passionate and almost obsessive interest in intercultural communication, this is a great opportunity to start my academic career. Living 10.463 km away from home, struggling with my chopsticks, greeting my Singaporean colleagues in the morning with with Záo An, laughing about silly things, was the moment that I noticed that we were more alike than the people I grew up with in a small village in Drenthe. After living in four continents, I realized that you don’t have to speak the same language to understand each other. Language is a way to connect, but it can also exclude people. The language barrier in Dutch can hold internationals back from participation in meetings of participatory bodies. Therefore, our research project called CORE focuses on receptive multilingualism. This means that Internationals can speak English and locals can speak Dutch. My PhD aims to explore to what extent a receptive approach in foreign language teaching can improve the communicative effectiveness in receptive multilingual settings to create a more inclusive international environment. I am really thankful for this chance, because in this way I can continue with discovering the world from home.