This book, A Journey Through Phonetics, brings together the insights the author has gained from more than forty years of studying language and teaching language. Through gradual supplementation, gradual adjustment, and gradual updating of its contents, it has little by little taken shape as a new framework for phonetics. The hope is to share these insights with all beginners who are interested in linguistic phenomena. Language is the most intimate and most familiar social phenomenon around us. Language is everywhere, inseparable from us; we are all bathed in an ocean of language. The outermost layer of language is speech sound, and the function of phonetics is precisely to explore these sounds, attempting to uncover their mysteries, to study their composition, to observe how we use our organs of speech, to think about how speech sounds should be classified, and to consider what changes speech sounds undergo in different regions. Why is the pronunciation of the same Chinese character different between one place and another? These and many other questions are all quite fascinating and worthy of deep thought. In this book, on the one hand, we introduce the pronunciation conditions of various Chinese dialects; on the other hand, we also introduce the phonetic evolution of Chinese at different historical stages, so that readers may have the opportunity to understand their own language more deeply both vertically and horizontally. Part of the book introduces the concepts and specialized terminology of ancient phonetics. With such a foundation, readers will find it much easier not only to study Chinese historical phonology and understand the history of Chinese, but also to gain a more effective approach to understanding and appreciating ancient literature. 這部《語音學之旅》把作者四十多年來研究語言、教學語言的心得，經過逐步補充、逐步調整，也逐步更新內容，逐漸形成了一個新的語音學框架，希望把這些心得，和所有對語言現象有興趣的初學者分享。 語言是人們身邊最親近、最熟習的社會現象，語言無所不在，須與不離，我們都沐浴在語言的海洋當中。語言的最表層就是語音，語音學的功能正是探索這些聲音，企圖揭開這些聲音的奧秘，研究這些聲音的組成，觀察怎麼運用我們的發音器官?思考怎麼爲語音分類?不同地區，語音會產生哪些變化?這個地方和那個地方，彼此之間，同一個漢字的發音有什麼不同?這些種種，都是頗具趣味，値得深思的問題。 在本書中，我們一方面介紹了漢語各種方言的發音狀況，一方面也介紹了漢語在不同歷史階段的語音演化，讓讀者們可以在縱的方面、橫的方面都有機會更深入的瞭解自己的語言。 本書部分篇幅介紹了古代語音學的概念、專用術語，讀者有了這樣的基礎，不但在學習聲韻學、瞭解漢語的歷史上方便得多，同時也對古代文學的瞭解和賞析提供了更有 效的途徑。