I'm looking for a phrase in German that can equate to the English phrase "Good riddance," a very sarcastic way of saying goodbye to someone/something that you won't actually miss. Is there a way to translate this with the proper negative connotation, or is there really no equivalent phrase? I can't find very much information about phrases like these with "hidden meanings," in a sense, so it'd be great to know if there is a phrase or why one doesn't exist.
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5Perhaps "Auf nimmerwiedersehen"?– Hagen von EitzenMay 19, 2019 at 21:18
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2 Answers
As Hagen wrote in a comment, you should use nimmer, which is a old form of nie mehr and niemals. Some dialects still use it nowadays, in others it's only used in fixed expressions as
Auf Nimmerwiedersehen!/Auf Nimmer!
Other common expressions with nimmer:
auf Nimmerwiedersehen weg sein/verschwunden sein
nie und nimmer
an St. Nimmerlein/zum St. Nimmerleinstag
der Nimmersatt
nimmermehr
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A side note to "St. Nimmerlein", as it might not be intuitive to non-native speakers: Back before calenders where in common use, often church holidays were used to denote dates. "Die Zinsen sind fällig an Johanni", "the interest (to the loan) is due on St. John's Day". The "Johanni" is a latin genitive, "(the day) of St. John". "St. Nimmerlein" is a fictional, tongue-in-cheeck saint. To say something'll happen "an St. Nimmerlein" basically expresses that it'll probably never happen. May 20, 2019 at 7:11
Other than the already mentioned phrases with "nimmer", you could say
Lass' Dich nicht aufhalten.
That translates roughly to "Don't let anything stop/delay you", but has a stronger connotation of "Would you please go already?". The "lass" is a shortened "lasse", the imperative of "(zu-)lassen".
answered May 20, 2019 at 7:04
