Um, sorry I didn't answer my cellphone but...

...my battery was dead.

The other day I was at work and thought about this sentence. It is becoming more and more useful because people are carrying more and more gadgets(high tech toys) that need batteries.

When I asked my co-workers:

What happened to the clock, did the batteries die?

They didn't understand me. So I had them tell me how to say it in Japanese...

電池がない。

But in English this can be translated in a few ways:

1- The battery is dead.

2- The batteries are dead.

3- There's no battery.

4- There are no batteries.

The expression "the batteries are dead" is a great and natural way to say that you lost power or something doesn't work because the batteries don't have a charge anymore. You can also use a similar expression:

The line went dead.

You will hear it often in movies, someone picks up a phone and suddenly it no longer works~! Usually, you hear it in horror movies where the killer has cut the phone lines... so when the phone line suddenly stops working while you are using the phone say "the line went dead" but if you pick up the phone and it doesn't work say "the line IS dead".

Ok that is it for now,

Phil