Quiero cancelar la reunión de hoy.

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Breakdown of Quiero cancelar la reunión de hoy.

• querer: to want
• hoy: today
• de: of

Questions & Answers about Quiero cancelar la reunión de hoy.

Could Quiero cancelar la reunión de hoy also mean I would like to cancel today’s meeting, or is it strictly I want?

In practice, Quiero cancelar la reunión de hoy usually feels like both:

• literal: I want to cancel today’s meeting
• typical, softer use: something very close to I’d like to cancel today’s meeting

In Spanish, querer + infinitive often sounds less blunt than want to in English. In everyday conversation (and even many emails), Quiero cancelar… is normally acceptable and not automatically rude.

However, if you want to sound more polite/formal, especially in Spain, you’d often choose:

• Quisiera cancelar la reunión de hoy. – I’d like to cancel today’s meeting. (more polite, a bit formal)
• Me gustaría cancelar la reunión de hoy. – I would like to cancel today’s meeting.
• Quería cancelar la reunión de hoy. – Literally “I wanted to cancel…”, but used as a softener, like “I was hoping to cancel…”.

So quiero can feel slightly more direct, but context and tone matter a lot, and it’s very common and natural.

Is Quiero cancelar… too direct or rude in Spanish, especially in Spain?