The increasing number of professional athletes pursuing careers abroad has attracted acculturation research viewing athletes' accounts of their own experiences as the ultimate truth. However, studying athletes' intercultural experience through such a lens often ignores the contextual factors influencing intercultural communication (IC), which may cause Othering and perpetuate stereotypes. Meanwhile, intercultural communication education (ICE) has grown popular in Taiwan to prepare students to engage in an essentialist conceptualisation of IC. Yet, it remains unclear whether those skills developed through those ICE programmes are applicable in the world context. To fill these gaps, I interviewed four Taiwanese athletes to explore how they navigate between culture, identity, and language when playing for professional sports clubs abroad. Participants' narratives were analysed using Bakhtin's notion of dialogism, which is further interpreted by Dervin (2011) as the liquid approach to interculturality. Based on the dialogical approach to athletes' discourses, the results show that they are constantly shifting between the essentialist and non-essentialist discourses when making sense of their experience. Furthermore, athletes demonstrate shifting attitudes whilst interacting with the team, illustrating that their identity is never finalised but co-constructed with the interlocutors in specific contexts. Finally, it is indicated that speaking the same language does not guarantee successful IC, as misunderstandings can arise due to various factors. In conclusion, I suggest moving beyond the notion of IC that attributes differences between interlocutors to 'the clash between cultures' and focusing on the process of ongoing negotiation of meanings depending on the interlocutors and the context where IC takes place. Further recommendations are discussed on designing ICE programmes targeting student-athletes.