You place the candles in one direction, and you light them in the opposite direction. This can be confusing, but there is a simple rule to remember.
Placing the candles
When facing the menorah, you place the new candle each night starting from the far right and then add new ones to the left each night (right to left, like Hebrew). On night one, there is a single candle on the right; on night two, you have a candle on the right and one just to its left, and so on.
Lighting the candles
When actually lighting, you always light the newest candle first, which is the one on the leftmost side that is currently in use. That means you light from left to right, using the shamash (helper candle), even though you placed the candles from right to left.
