Traditional Chinese Dynastic Time Chart

(dates for pre-Zhou times are speculative)

Xia			~2200 – ~1700 BC
Shang			~1700 – ~1100 BC
	Western Zhou		~ 1100 – 771 BC
Zhou	Eastern Zhou		770 – 256 BC
	Spring and Autumn		722 – 481 BC
	Warring States		403 – 221 BC
Qin			221 – 206 BC
	Western Han		206 BC – 9 AD
Han	Xin		9 - 25
	Eastern Han		25 – 220
	Wei		220 – 265
Three Kingdoms	Shu		221 – 263
	Wu		222 – 280
Western Jin			265 – 316
Eastern Jin			317 – 420
Sixteen Kingdoms			304 – 439
		Song	420 – 479
	Southern	Qi	479 – 502
	Dynasties	Liang	502 – 557
		Chen	557 – 589
Northern and Southern		Northern Wei	386 – 534
Dynasties		Eastern Wei	534 – 550
	Northern	Northern Qi	550 – 577
	Dynasties	Western Wei	535 – 557
		Northern Zhou	557 – 581
Sui			581 – 618
Tang			618 – 907
	Later Liang		907 – 923
Five Dynasties	Later Tang		923 – 936
&	Later Jin		936 – 946
Ten Kingdoms	Later Han		947 – 950
	Later Zhou		951 – 960
	Ten Kingdoms		902 – 979
	Liao (Khitan)		907 – 1125
Liao-Jin	Jin (Ruzhen)		1115 – 1234
	Xixia		1032 – 1227
Song	Northern Song		960 – 1127
	Southern Song		1127 – 1279
Yuan (Mongol)			1279 – 1368
Ming			1368 – 1644
Qing (Manchu)			1644 – 1911
Republic of China (Nationalist Period)			1912 – 1949
People’s Republic of China			1949 – present

Chinese Pronunciation Guide

I have used the Pinyin alphabet, adopted in the People’s Republic of China and the United Nations as a standard for romanizing Chinese, for transcribing Chinese words on ATARN. The guide below takes Chinese syllable-by-syllable, and then divides each syllable into the initial sounds (consonants and semi-vowels) and final groups (vowels and nasal consonants.) Don’t worry: it’s not as complicated as it sounds. Chinese syllables also have distinctive tones; but they are not necessary for the purposes of this book are I have omitted them.

Initial sounds		Final groups
b	b	-a	‘father’	-u	‘blue’
p	p	-ai	‘buy’	-ua	‘one-to-one’
m	m	-ao	‘cow’	-uo	‘war’
f	f	-an	‘pen’	-uai	‘why’
d	d	-ang	‘lung’	-ui	‘way’
t	t	-o	‘saw’	-uan	‘one’
n	n	-ou	‘so’	-un	‘soon’
l	l	-ong	‘Mao Tse Tung’	-uang	‘Wang’
g	g	-e	Fr. Monsieu	-ü	Fr. ‘Tu’
k	k	-ei	‘pay’	-üe	Fr. ‘Tué’
h	kh (Scottish ‘loch’)	-er	‘err’	-üan	Yuan
j	jy (‘jeep’)	-en	Zhou Enlai	-ün	Vietnamese: ‘Nguyen’
q	chy (‘cheap’)	-eng	Deng Xiaoping
x	shy (‘Asia’)	-i	‘see’ (See note)
zh	jr (‘drain’)	-ia	‘yard’
ch	chr (‘train’)	-ie	‘yeah’
sh	shr (‘shrink’)	-iao	‘miaow’
r	r (‘pleasure’)	-iu	‘you’
z	dz (‘adze’)	-in	‘seen’
c	ts (‘Tsetse fly’)	-ing	‘Ming’
s	s	-ian	‘yen’
y	y	-iang	‘Chiang Kai Shek’
w	w	-iong	‘Foo yoong’

Note: the final syllable [-i] prolongs the sound of the letters before it. So after z-, c-, s-, it is ‘-zzz’ like a bee, and after zh-, ch-, sh- and r-, it sounds like ‘err’, and after j-, q-, x- and all the others it is ‘-ee’,