This is one of the essential Chinese lessons that you must learn, so that you will know the basic words for directions, in which case you will not get lost when you visit China. The seven basic Chinese direction words are: 前后左右上下中. But it can be tricky to only know these, because if you are travelling in the north China, instead of saying left or right, you might hear: 东(east)南(south)西(west)北(north), when you ask for directions.