The paper focuses on how past experience with international and intercultural collaboration informs students' current experience of an international and intercultural collaboration. To understand student experiences, we studied the reflections students wrote at the end of their participation in the Trans-Atlantic & Pacific Project (TAPP). Three themes emerged: language skills, emotions students experienced around their English-language skills, and their engagement with TAPP. We argue that students’ prior knowledge of TAPP enhances their current collaborative experience of TAPP by helping them approach TAPP with greater confidence in their collaborative and language skills.