Make sure you have read the legal bit on my home page.
Japanese has several different ways of saying "and", depending on what is being joined and whether or not the list is complete.
shyokudouniwarumonototomodachigaimashita. "The ruffians and their friends (and no-one else) were in the dining-room." to joins nouns and is an "exclusive and" - the list given is the complete list.
saburinasanhasashimitoikawotabemashita. "Sabrina ate raw fish and squid". She definitely did not eat octopus.
shyokudouniwarumonoyatomodachigaimashita. "The ruffians and their friends (and maybe other people) were in the dining-room." ya joins nouns and is an "inclusive and" - the list given is not necessarily the complete list.
saburinasanhasashimiyaikawotabemashita. "Sabrina ate raw fish and squid". She might have eaten octopus too.
to can also be used as a particle, meaning "with":
saburinasanhawarumonototabemashita. "Sabrina ate with the ruffians".
Logically, one might expect that ya could also be used as a particle, meaning "with (and maybe others)", but as far as I can tell it is not.
saburinasangashyokudounikimashita.soshitemahoutsukaisamamoshyokudounikimashita. "Sabrina came into the dining-room. And then the wizard also came into the dining-room." soshite joins two sentences. In principle, it means "and then", and indicates that the action described in the second sentence follows sequentially after the action described in the first. Sometimes, it means "thus", and indicates that the action described in the second sentence follows as a logical consequence of the action described in the first. In practice, it often just means "and", and there is no connection between the sentences other than that the speaker has a vague feeling that they are somehow related.
mahoutsukaisamahajuubakuwotatarimashita.soshitesaburinasangaodorimashita. "The magician cast a spell. And Sabrina danced." Does this indicate temporal sequence, or cause and effect, or merely that the speaker thinks that the two actions were somehow related? There are other sentence patterns, coming up in the next few pages, which make the distinction clearer.
saburinasanhaodo,tenugimashita. "Sabrina danced and undressed." The te form of verbs can be used to join them, provided that the subject and verb tense (present/past, positive/negative) are the same. In principle, this too implies a temporal sequence. In practice, it often does not.
tabetekudasai. "Eat, please." kudasai, "please", is (at least technically) a verb. Does this suggest that the pleasing follows the eating? Well, possibly, but it's really an invitation to eat.
As will be seen in later pages, the te form is also used when joining a verb with one of a number of auxiliary verbs, and in such cases it certainly does not imply temporal sequence.
To compensate for having all those ways of saying "and", Japanese does not have any way of saying "or".
tabemonohaoishika,tadesuka.oishikunaka,tadesuka. "Was the food tasty or not?" Literally, "Was the food tasty? Not tasty?"