se ha ido la luz
“se ha ido la luz” — the power went out in Spanish. Phrase, level A1. Literally 'the light has left' — said of a whole-building outage. La luz here is electricity, not the lamp. In a live sentence: “Se ha ido la luz en todo el edificio” — The power went out in the whole building. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Spanish course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Spanish | se ha ido la luz |
| Translation | the power went out |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A1 |
- se ha ido la luzthe power went out
Why it looks that way
Literally 'the light has left' — said of a whole-building outage. La luz here is electricity, not the lamp
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Se ha ido la luz en todo el edificioThe power went out in the whole building
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “the power went out” in Spanish?
«se ha ido la luz». In a live sentence: “Se ha ido la luz en todo el edificio” — The power went out in the whole building. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally 'the light has left' — said of a whole-building outage. La luz here is electricity, not the lamp. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.