How to say goodbye in Spanish?

Las despedidas en español

To say goodbye, which in Spanish is called “Las despedidas”, we have also formal and informal ways to say them.

Often the greetings “buenos días”, “buenas tardes” and “buenas noches” are also used to say goodbye as they can be appropriate in several contexts such as when kids go to bed at night or when we finish a conversation on the phone. 

However, the most common way of saying goodbye is “adiós” and it can be used either in formal or informal contexts although we can also say “¡hasta pronto!” or “¡adiós!, ¡hasta pronto!”. If the conversation is very formal we can also say “saludos” or “un saludo”, which is something used commonly in written Spanish when saying goodbye in a formal letter or email.

Furthermore, the word "hasta" plus a word that indicates time is often used. We can say “¡hasta pronto!” (see you soon!), “¡hasta mañana!” (see you tomorrow!), “¡hasta luego!” (see you later!), “¡hasta la semana que viene!” (see you next week!) or even “¡hasta nunca!”, which literally means “see you never!” and it’s used if we want to end a bad conversation. We can also say “¡hasta la vista!” just like  The Terminator did at the end of the movie Terminator 2.

The English expression “take care!” has also an equivalent in Spanish, which is “¡Cuídate!”, but it's normally used in informal conversations.

Have a look at the blackboard and memorise all these expressions to use them in the future: