用台阶练习上去和下来

What does “上去” and “下来” mean in Chinese?

台阶 (táijie) means a flight of steps or a single step. What makes it useful at A1 is that it comes with a built-in pair of directional complements: 上去 (shàngqù) means to go up away from the speaker, while 下来 (xiàlái) means to come down toward the speaker. The direction of the action relative to you is baked right into the verb ending.

The clip drills both directions on a real three-step staircase: 上台阶 (go up the steps) paired with 下台阶 (come down the steps), then adds the compound forms 走上去 and 走下来. The 来/去 distinction runs through hundreds of Chinese verbs — 进来 vs 进去 (come in / go in), 出来 vs 出去 (come out / go out) — so anchoring it to a concrete staircase first pays dividends across the whole language.