www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/ Hong_Kong/Warnings_or_Dangers-Hong_Kong-Safety-BR-1.html

Never jaywalk unless you have a death wish -- this isn't Rome, you know! :)

yes, Stephan, it's a good translation.

Vielleicht doch eher:

death wish -- der Todeswunsch
Dictionary: death wish

ups, danke macht auch mehr Sinn.

Ich weiß nicht wie es in der Psychologie gehandhabt wird, aber für mein Nicht-Experten-Sprachempfinden sind Todessehnsucht und Todeswunsch nicht das selbe. Todessehnsucht bezieht sich zweifellos auf den eigenen Tod, während sich ein Todeswunsch auch auf jemand anderen Beziehen kann (zB ein Fluch).

november: oops, I didn't even notice the typo because I assumed that Stephan meant to say death wish.
KL2005 and Stephan: from the example given, I didn't really think that Stephan was looking for a proper medical term but rather an idiomatic expression. In this meaning the term death wish has exactly the meaning that Stephan suggested - the German equivalent would probably be something along the lines of: "bei rot ueber die Strasse zu gehen, da muss man ja lebensmuede sein". For a proper definition please see the link above. Basically, in psychiatry, death wish has the meaning of Todeswunsch, as per your definition KL2005, but generally, it is used in the meaning of Todessehnsucht.

Hihi, da muss ich doch wieder über die Leute, die über die AMPEL rennen, lachen...ganz schön sportlich!

Für das deutsche Wort Todessehnsucht scheint es keinen adäquaten engl. Begriff zu geben. In der Literatur wird auch meist vom Eros Thanatos gesprochen: Rilke (Malte, Schnitzler, Schaukal etc.
Google mal unter griech. Eros Thanatos. Dort findest du bestimmt etwas über die Dialektik von Liebe und Todessehnsucht.

The Oxford-Duden German Dictionary - Clarendon Press Oxford 1994/Oxford University Press

Versuch es mal hankering for death.

:)

4. Affixia: thanato-
------------------------------------------------------------------
This combining form derives from the Greek 'thanatos' for death.
It's mostly found in medical terms, but the only one with much
circulation is 'thanatology', the scientific study of the causes
and phenomena of death, including the study of the needs of the
terminally ill and their families (someone who does this is, of
course, a 'thanatologist'). A few other words exist, though hardly
with much currency, such as 'thanatophilia', an undue fascination
with death, which is balanced by 'thanatophobia', a morbid fear of
death. 'Thanatopsis' is the contemplation of death and 'thanatoid'
is a very rare adjective that refers to someone who is apparently,
but not actually, dead.

Offensichtlich ist die Bedeutung von "thanatophilia" im Englischen aber nicht eindeutig.