This paper tries to examine the connections between the concepts of the linguistic repertoire, of language ideologies, and of lived experience of language. In foregrounding the concept of Spracherleben, the lived experience of language, this paper adds to the ongoing debate on how to rethink the concept of the linguistic repertoire considering that current phenomena like enhanced mobility, migration, or participation in transnational networks of communication make it difficult to take, as Gumperz (1964) did in his original concept, rather stable speech communities as point of departure. The concept of the lived experience of language developed here underscores the intersubjective dimension of language as a gesture toward the other and sheds light on the often-neglected bodily and emotional dimensions of perception and speech. Attaching specific importance to the viewpoint of the experiencing subject, the concept is based on phenomenological approaches, as generated in the 1940s by the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty.