Immerse, a startup focusing on teaching languages in VR, has launched a social app on Quest 2 which lets subscribers take part in live Spanish or English lessons, peer-to-peer conversation practice, and weekly community events.
When Immerse first secured a $1.5 million Series A investment in late 2020 most of the world was working and going to school from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea: learn a language through full-immersion, with VR allowing you to talk face-to-face with other learners and an instructor while you took on real world scenarios.
In March 2022, the company further secured $9 million in its Series B, which allowed it to develop its app for Quest 2 in addition to partnering with institutions across the world to offer up a full-immersion language learning platform. At the time, the company was focused on teaching English as a foreign language, but now Immerse has launched its app on Quest 2 for users looking to improve their Spanish or English. The membership fee is priced at $45 per month, which includes:
- 12 Live VR lessons facilitated by an expert Language Guide per month
- 24/7 access to the Social lounge for Live Conversation Practice
- Personalized feedback to accelerate fluency growth
- Weekly events to build new community and cultural insight
Immerse is also set to add French and Japanese to their list of available languages, arriving sometime in 2023. Then, the company will be bumping its membership fee to $60 per month. The app does however offer a seven-day free trial to see if its right for you. For now, the free trial is only available for users looking to learn Spanish.
In defense of the app’s membership pricing, Immerse had this to say in the comments of a user review:
Our membership fee is $45 per month because we provide more than typical language learning apps. Our monthly membership includes 12 live VR classes per month, facilitated by a live expert Language Guide, plus 24/7 access to the Social Lounge where you can enjoy real conversation practice with other learners from around the world.
12 classes on a traditional tutoring platform would cost well over $200, and to experience language immersion in real life would require hefty international travel fees far exceeding $45/month. Our goal is to increase people’s access to that kind of immersive language learning experience, but for a fraction of the cost. We hope you’ll consider a 7-day free trial and book our Orientation to learn more about this new kind of learning experience we have to offer.
The studio says Immerse is also coming to other VR headsets in the future. On its road to greater adoption, the company says it will pioneer best practices for immersive teaching and learning, and build what it says it hopes will be “a thriving virtual world community that will one day rival the likes of Rec Room, Roblox, and VRChat.”
The studio also released a 6-minute video to show off the app, and some of the things you can do with it: