You need to live in a country where that language predominates. But cost or opportunity often make that infeasible. San Francisco startup Learn Immersive wants to create the next best thing. Its two-man team has built a virtual reality platform that transports you to real-world environments and helps you understand them in their native language.

For co-founder Tony Diepenbrock, the thrust of the idea comes from frustration. "I studied French for 12 years, but when I tried to speak it in the country, often-times foreigners would respond to me in English," he tells Gizmag. The test-obsessed American schooling system doesn't work for learning languages, he feels. "You need to immerse yourself in situations where you need to figure out what to say."

That's what Learn Immersive is all about. "We're trying to simulate these scenarios, and [to] make anything and everything interactive," Diepenbrock continues. "You can click on any object around you in VR and receive the translation. We can create puzzles for you to figure out."