Chinese Directional Complements: Free PDF and Flashcards

Chinese verbs love a sidekick. Words like 来 (lái) and 去 (qù) hop onto the end of a verb and tell you exactly where the action is heading-up, down, in, out, back, over. These little helpers are directional complements, and they’re the reason you can say “come in,” “go out,” or “bring back” without a pile of extra words.

This list gathers around 55 of the most common directional complements you’ll actually use in daily chats, from ordering 拿上来 (bring it up) to describing where your cat wandered off to. We skipped the obscure grammar-book filler. Every entry pairs a clear meaning with a natural example sentence so you see how the complement behaves in a real Chinese sentence-not a lifeless dictionary entry.

Ready for a quick grammar adventure? These little direction words help Chinese verbs show where action goes, and yes, they’re easier than they sound—scroll to the bottom for the free printable directional complements Chinese vocabulary list PDF and the free downloadable printable directional complements Chinese flashcards.

Use this list as a starting point, then keep going in the Yak Yacker Chinese section for more words, phrases, and study-friendly reference pages.

Quick Quiz

Think you can already tell 上去 from 下去 without blinking? The quick quiz below gives you a friendly nudge-no pressure, just a fun way to see how many complements are really sticking.

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Browse the Full List

Word	Pinyin	Type	Meaning
送来	sòng lái	directional complement	bring (to speaker)
递去	dì qù	Verb + Directional Complement	pass over (away from the speaker)
递来	dì lái	Verb + Directional Complement	pass over (towards the speaker)
飞去	fēi qù	directional complement	to fly away, to fly (to a place)
飞来	fēi lái	directional complement	fly over (towards speaker)

Free Chinese Directional Complements PDF and Flashcard Downloads

Grab the purple vocab-list button for the directional complements Chinese vocabulary list and the teal flashcards button for the directional complements Chinese flashcards. Both downloads are 100% free and require no signup.