The majority of English language learners around the world are introduced to English through formal education. This is the case either because English, for most of them, is a mandatory school subject or because they were advised to invest in learning an ‘international language’, or lingua franca, based on the belief that English opens doors for educational, professional, and social opportunities. In addition, learning English can also be associated with multiple identity investments that allow access to new social and cultural domains (cf. Norton Peirce, 1995, on Investment) or that enable learners to consume the language in settings where they are required or encouraged to practise what they have learnt (cf. Ros i Solé and Fenoulhet, 2010; Kubota, 2011). Irrespective of the motivational factors that underpin learners’ engagement with and desire for learning English, there is one fundamental challenge that often goes unnoticed (unless triggered by a major destabilising event, as I discuss later): it is the challenge of how language learners conceptualise English in their minds, as well as the factors behind, and the implications of, such conceptualisations.