English Translation
The lights came back on.
The lights are plural, das Licht is singular… should it be plural?
In the german mindset, “das Licht” is on a more abstract level than the english “light”. It refers to the - basically uncountable - physical light, more than to the individual light sources. Or maybe you can think of it as “the illumination system”.
So where english uses the plural, german usually uses the singular:
Das Licht ist im ganzen Haus ausgegangen. - The lights went out in the whole house.
Er hat das Licht brennen lassen. - He left the lights on.
“Licht” can refer to a single light source, i.e. a candle, however this usage feels a bit outdated and can only be seen in a few words such as “das Teelicht”. The fact that we still say “das Licht brennt” even though it has been electric for a long time shows that this is where it originates.
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