MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombia: Duchess of Sussex speaks in Spanish with Argentine accent

Markle used to work at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires 20 years ago

Prince Harry's wife Meghan Markle spoke in Spanish this weekend during an event of Afro-descendant women in Cali alongside Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez. Although she completed her speech in English, he said a few words in the language she had learned while working at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires.

“Sorry if my Spanish is not so perfect because I learned it 20 years ago in Argentina,” she said in a brief speech in Spanish in Cali. Her pronunciation was typical of Buenos Aires and very much different from other variants more common in other Latin American countries or even Spain.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in Colombia at the invitation of Márquez, the first Afro-descendant person ever to reach such a high office in the South American country. The Sussexes were undertaking a mission for their Archewell Foundation regarding cyberbullying of children and adolescents.

”Hello, very good afternoon. I would like to start in Spanish. Because we are in your country, my husband and me. And I can feel this embrace from Colombia. It's incredible. So thank you, thank you very much because the culture and the history, everything, I was cone in a dream on this trip. And forgive me if my Spanish is not so perfect because I learned 20 years ago in Argentina. But I am trying and here I can feel this community and that feeling is the best in the world now. So now, vice president (Francia Márquez, who was next to her), my friend, thank you very much.“

”Well, now, in English...,“ she said as a prelude to her official speech with Prince Harry in the audience.

In a TV interview years ago, Markle said that ”I graduated in international relations and then I went and worked at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires. Now I speak (Spanish), but there are different kinds of Spanish. It's Castellano, it sounds very similar to Italian,” she explained.