How to construct a list?

[Shelley]

I was recently reading a short passage from one of my text books and there was a list of 5 people who were going to see a film.

 

The format was: Billy and Joe, Tom, Dick, Harry were going to see a film.

 

Of course in English it is the other way round: Billy, Joe, Tom, Dick , and Harry were going to see a film.

 

Is this the normal way to write a list in chinese?

 

Is there a set pattern for lists?

 

Does it differ for people and animals or is it the same for nouns or other things?

 

What can you put in a list?

 

I have not thought about this until I read it and it has been going round in my head and I can't find anything to set me straight.

[abcdefg]

In Chinese the commas are different for a list. They go the other way. Other than that, I don't think there are any special rules. You list people, animals and things the same way. 

 

张东、杨瑞、和美丽一起去上海。

狗、猫、和人都经常吃肉。

飞机、火车、和汽车都需要汽油。

[艾墨本]

I think word order in English is dependant on context and here the Oxford comma is helpful.

4 hours ago, Shelley said:

: Billy and Joe, Tom, Dick, Harry were going to see a film.

To me this says Billy and Joe are together for some reason, perhaps buddies or the like, and are coming together. Though, an “and” is still needed before Harry.

 

to achieve the same effect in Chinese your word order could be used or a variety commas

 

, are for splitting clauses while 、are used for splitting objects in a list while still being the same clause. Which means in the above example the type of comma after Billy and Joe would help tell you if it was a new clause or a part of the list.

我有五十本书，其中我最喜欢的是《活着》、《寻找桃花源》（、/和）《现代汉语》。in contrast to English though, you can drop the 和 between the last two in a list and use the list comma instead. It seems you’re encountering this in your above example.

 

I’m a huge fan of this list comma and makes longer sentences way more straightforward so long as I pay attention to that little detail.

[歐博思]

Are they more commonly used:

together 我喜歡喝水、咖啡、和果汁, or

pick one 歡喝水、咖啡和果汁 / 我喜歡喝水、咖啡、果汁.

 

If they're not used together often, are there certain writing styles and work fields in which they are?