人生沒有用不到的經歷

說英文，首先要暫時拋開文法，文法是書報及學術文章的修辭規範，你若拋不開文法，說話就會慢半拍。多想想簡單的字，say, understand, own, exist, contain, mean, want, make, turn 等。課堂上，學生發問與老師回答，專業詞彙之外都是很通俗的字句。下面是版主虛構的模擬問答:

學生的問題：
In your second -to-last slide, you said that oxygen is the acceptor of high-energy electron. But I still don’t understand how hydrogen owns high energy in a cell and in mitochondria. How does hydrogen exist alone ? It contains high energy in the form of hydrogen plus an electron (H．)? Is that what you mean?
在你的倒數第二張slide，你說氧是高能電子的接受者，但我無法理解「氫」何以能在細胞及粒線體中擁有高能量。「氫」以何種方式單獨存在？它以H．這種方式擁有高能量嗎？你的意思是這樣嗎？

老師的回答：
What I want to say to you is hydrogen splits from the organic molecule NADH. An electron comes with it, that is, a hydrogen plus an electron (H．), but this is only a transient status. What I am saying is splitting makes an unstable hydrogen. “Unstable” is the source of energy.
我要跟你們說的是，「氫」自有機分子NADH裂解而來，之後一個電子跟隨著它，也就是說，一個氫加上一個電子，但這只是一個短暫的狀態。我想要說的是，裂解產生一個不穩定的氫，不穩定就是能量的來源。

When you burn a wood, a small fire splits carbon and hydrogen from organic molecules in the wood. And then you see a big fire burning. Finally, the wood turns into a smoke, evaporating into the air. The smoke is made up of water and carbon dioxide, with elements coming from organic molecules within the wood.
當你燃燒木材時，一個小火可使木材中有機分子的碳與氫裂解，然後你看到熊熊烈火燃燒起來，最後木材化為輕煙消失在空氣中。輕煙由水與二氧化碳組成，其成份來自木材中的有機分子。

I have to say that energy is contained inside the wood. To speak straight, a small fire makes a big fire from a wood. And the big fire can cook food for you to eat. Do you see energy? Well, an organism cannot combust biomolecules like burning a wood. Energy comes from enzymatic separation of a hydrogen and an electron, as you know, hydrogen is from NADH. As a result, the hydrogen turns into a proton (H+), and the electron, you know with high energy, goes into an electron transport system that let you use energy without feeling a burn inside your body.
我要強調的是，能量藏在木材中，說的直接一點，小火由木材製造大火，大火可以烹調食物給你吃。你看到能量了嗎？嗯，有機生物無法像燃燒木頭一樣燃燒生物分子。能量來自酵素讓氫與電子分離，如你所知，氫來自NADH。結果，氫變成氫離子，電子呢，你知道它有高能量，進入一種電子傳遞系統，讓你使用能量卻沒有感覺有東西在你體內燃燒。

So, in your body, hydrogen exists not in the form of free radical (hydrogen + electron) but in the form of hydrogen ion, that is, a proton (H+). The high-energy electron is buffered in a system of protein complexes, that is, electron transport system, in which energy is released from the electron. Finally two protons receive two electrons,  having released energy, at the end of the buffer system, plus a split oxygen atom with a pair of electrons, coming from oxygen gas; all these constitute an H2O, the water molecule.
所以囉，在你的身體裡面，氫並不是以自由基方式存在，而是以 “氫離子” 存在人體中。上面說的高能電子在一個蛋白質的複合系統中得到緩衝，那個複合系統就是電子傳遞系統，能量在此系統中由高能電子緩慢釋出。最後，兩個氫離子等在緩衝系統後面接收電子 (能量已釋放)，加上一個從氧氣分裂出來含有成對電子的氧，共同組成一個H2O，也就是水分子。