I am currently learning the basics of web building and i am wondering if and when you should use html lists or css lists?

The way i see it is if you are going to make a css list you are going to use that list setup later and just make a html list when u just need it once?

did i just answer my own question? or is there a web standard where you should always use css for lists? idk.

Html or Css lists ? They are the same thing. Sort of....

Ideally, use HTML to 'structure' your page and CSS to 'style' it. So, use the <ul>, <ol>, or <dl> tag sets to define the list in the HTML page, complete with the list item tags. That gives the content to your page.
Then use CSS to make them all pretty and stuff like that.

There are no 'lists' in CSS. CSS simply adds styling to the HTML on the page.

Hope this helps.