老師對同學說："Wow, you are on fire!"，同學嚇一跳，以為自己身上著火了。

on fire的確有"著火"的意思，比如：

The house is on fire.

房子起火了！

但是on fire可不僅僅有“著火”的意思，它還可以表示“情緒飽滿、熱情高漲、高水平發(fā)揮”，比如：

Man, you are on fire!

哥們兒，你狀態(tài)真不錯！

You guys were on fire in the last quarter.

你們最后一節(jié)真是打得太棒了。

“上火”英語怎么說？

本來“上火”這個概念對許多外國友人來說已經(jīng)很深奧了，可別說成“I'm on fire”讓別人更摸不著頭腦。

究竟怎么才能準確表達“上火”呢?

英語中有這樣一個詞：heatiness

a characteristic of certain foods or stimulants said to cause emotional or physical reactions associated with temper, fever, passion, excess, or true heat.（From Chinese culture and medicine.）

一種食物或刺激物的特性，據(jù)說能引起情緒或身體上的反應，與脾氣、發(fā)燒、情緒、過量或熱有關。（源自中醫(yī)）

heatiness的形容詞形式是heaty：

You're heaty.

你火大（上火）。

這個詞其實算是中醫(yī)術語，在此基礎上我們還可以對外國友人解釋一下這個中醫(yī)概念：

"Shanghuo(heatiness)" is a unique concept in traditional Chinese medicine.

“上火”是傳統(tǒng)中醫(yī)中一個特有的概念。

Traditional Chinese medicine categorises food as涼lèung (“cooling”),熱氣yiht hei (“warming”) and neutral–and practitioners use the nature of the foods to balance the body's yin and yang.

傳統(tǒng)中醫(yī)把食物分為涼性、熱性和中性——醫(yī)生們則用這些食物的特性平衡人體的陰陽。

TCM describes heaty foods as having the ability to warm and improve circulation, dispel cold and stimulate the body. When these foods are taken in excess (yang is greater than yin, your body will generate too much heat), heatiness is caused, resulting in symptoms such as fever, sore throat, mouth ulcers, acne, excessive thirst, redness of the skin and irritability.

中醫(yī)認為，熱性食物具有保暖、促進血液循環(huán)、驅(qū)寒和激發(fā)身體的功能。當這些食物攝入過量（體內(nèi)的陽壓過陰時，你的身體會產(chǎn)生過多的熱氣），會導致“上火”的現(xiàn)象，引發(fā)發(fā)燒、喉嚨痛、口腔潰瘍、痤瘡、極度口渴、皮膚發(fā)紅和易怒等癥狀。

（來源：譯世界微信公眾號  編輯：yaning）