Connecting with Josh Goldsmith
Distinguished Speaker, ATA67
(Interpreters Division and Spanish Division)
Our stories start long before we’re born, and Josh Goldsmith’s story is no exception. One generation connects to the next and the gifts and experiences they pass along help shape those yet to come.
Sometimes, those gifts and experiences find an echo across generations.
Take Josh and his great-grandfather. A gifted polyglot, Josh’s great-grandfather left his native Poland in response to changes in the world around him, eventually emigrating to the Americas–first, to Guatemala (where Josh’s grandmother was born), then to the United States.
While his great-grandfather learned trades consecutively, as life required, Josh embraced his interests concurrently, as life allowed: teaching guitar, teaching languages, interpreting and translation, exploring technology, and more. While his forebear served for a time as an ad-hoc interpreter, Josh found his way to a career in interpreting and translation and continued to branch out, always centered on languages.
He started with Spanish and French in elementary and high school in Florida, followed by Italian at a local college. He studied Hebrew on his own (so that he could understand what they were actually saying in synagogue and Hebrew school, he says). During his college years, he did two semesters abroad: one in Israel, the other in Germany.
By the time he graduated from Princeton University, he had also acquired Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, and German—and dabbled in American Sign Language. Princeton did not offer a major in linguistics at that time, so Josh did an independent study major, writing his thesis on third-language acquisition and sociolinguistics.
Eventually, Josh closed the family circle: he moved permanently from the United States to Europe, living in Trieste and then Venice, followed by Geneva, and currently, Barcelona. While in Italy, he reached back in his own history and took two semesters of Polish.
But for Josh, it is about more than acquiring languages or knowing his family’s story. It’s about human connection. The human story.
He is accredited as a teacher in Spain, and has taught English as a Foreign Language to middle and high schoolers in Barcelona. He spent a year teaching young adults in Philadelphia at El Centro de Estudiantes. He spent some time as a youth group coordinator.
His face lights up when he talks about education. In Josh’s words, “I really love breaking down complicated ideas and making them accessible.”
He also loves making learning itself accessible.
So while many may know him best as a UN- and EU-accredited translator and interpreter, where he works from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan into English, Josh is also known around the world (literally!) for the way he has taken technology and found ways to make it serve language professionals.
During the pandemic, Josh teamed up with Alexander Dreschel to provide training courses. For several months, they offered a free webinar every week. And from these efforts, techforword was born.
They started by taking their existing courses and offering them at no charge. Then they created a library that was free for one year. Self-study courses followed, along with a few online live courses. They created and hosted the first Innovation in Interpreting Summit. Over time, Alexander stepped aside, but the Summits did not end. Most recently, Josh and Nora Díaz co-hosted the 2026 Direct Client Summit. The Summits pull together both new and established voices, showcasing a range of skills and perspectives.
But the underlying goal has always been the same: to make information and tools accessible to colleagues, to create links in a chain that help others connect with ideas, technology, and clients. And with each other.
The techforword site holds a host of services and tools for interpreters and translators. For Josh, technology is a many-faceted tool and he stays up-to-date with it. He plays with it. “I’m excited by how technology can be used by language professionals, how we can use it to do our jobs better, faster, be more productive, find more clients, find better clients, be more visible—not just technology for technology’s sake,” he shared.
And when he’s not interpreting, or translating, or teaching, or designing the next Summit dashboard, Josh connects in other ways: with books, in nature, through music and cooking, and simply hanging with friends.
He smiles when I ask about his family. His parents are thrilled that he works in something he loves, and in yet another family echo, his two siblings are also entrepreneurs. I can’t help but think that his great-grandfather would be proud.
Note: You can learn more about Josh and his great-grandfather’s journeys in Josh’s winning speech from the European Commission’s Young Interpreters Award 2015 (Leopoldo Costa Prize).
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Josh Goldsmith is a UN and EU accredited translator and interpreter working from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan into English. He splits his time between interpreting, translating, and teaching at the intersection of interpreting, technology and education. As Geek-In-Chief of techforword, Josh shares tips about technology, translation and interpreting in conferences and workshops, academic articles, as co-host of the AI in Translation and AI in Interpreting Summits, at AI Language Club and at techforword insiders, the premier online community for innovative language professionals.
Author: Carol Shaw is a member of the ATA Interpreters Division Leadership Council and serves as the division’s blog and website editor.
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