How do you learn openings?

I've been trying to watch videos, use the chess mentor etc. and learning openings is so overwhelming.

Is there anything out there that helps you step through say 12 or so standard openings to help you learn them and then slowly introduce alternates on top of that?

With the videos here there tends to be a lot of alternatives and a lot of "If the opponent moves X you'll do this, if Y you'll do this if Z you'll do this" and within 15 minutes they blast through a lot of possibilities which makes it tough to learn.

Are there any programs out there that introduce an opening or defense, steps you through the moves and reasons why and then has you do it a few times to help you learn it before moving on?

Any suggestions?

look up one opening for white and two defenses for black, one to e4 and one for d4. basically, just learn the few first move for each opening (maybe through 5 or 6 moves) and play them a few times. knowing your opening is much easier after it has been played a few times. after you know say the first 5 or 6 moves, look up any further moves as you see fit, but you really dont have to look that in depth to start out with. if you learn the first 5 or 6 moves to start out with, and know basically what the opening is trying to do, you should be fine without having too look at the first 10 or 15 moves of the opening, which you could do after your more comfortable with it. thats basically how i learned my first openings anyway

My suggestion is to learn a tiny bit each game. Stick with a single opening line. Whenever somebody plays something new against you, look up what you should have played there in an opening database and figure out why.

If there is no opening like what your oppenent played, try and figure out why nobody plays it.

If you do this, you will actually remember what you learn because you will understand it. Before you know it, you will be able to play the opening as good as the next guy without wasting time memorizing lines you don't understand or that you will never use.

The game explorer (chess.com's interactive database) is pretty useful for learning the most popular lines that masters use.  I like to boot up Chessmaster and follow along the opening lines until I'm out of the book.  Between the Chessmaster commentary and the game explorer's  list of the most popular responses, you can get a pretty good idea of what is going on.  It's still a lot of work of course and you have to supplement it with a book or Chessmentor, but it is kind of cool to be able to "guess" what the appropriate response to a Chessmaster move should be and then immediately switch screens to the game explorer and see how popular your response is.  If it isn't even listed: well, you might have come up with a novelty, but it is probably just wrong.  By following the lines that arise for the most popular several responses, you can get a feel for the position.  

You really don't need to know 12 openings at your rating. I play just a handful of openings. In something like 80 % of my games with the White pieces I play the same opening (the Danish Gambit), and in about 80 % of my games when playing Black, I also play the same opening (the Latvian Gambit).

I think you should choose a White opening you like (beginning with 1. e4), and a Black opening you like (being a reply to 1. e5). If your opponent plays something else - just improvise! 

I know I don't need to know 12 yet, I'm just hoping someone has created a good program for learning many different openings in a good way.

Learning a few opening moves and then playing from there is an ok suggestions. Problem is I've been trying that and just about every game I've run into different moves so it isn't really helping.

I need to learn a standard opening and then find a good way to learn all the main possibilities on it. From there I can slowly move onto learning another and another.

Problem is opening knowledge does not come overnight. You will run into different things all the time for quite a while. There is no fast way to learn chess.

I think I'll just pick an opening for white and whichever one for black will cover the majority of white openings and use the game explorer to find the 10 most common moves and start memorizing the response. From there I'll start working in the variations up to a few moves so I'll be ready for the start of most games. I found a program online that you can put openings in and it will help you go over it again and again. That way I won't have to write it down and go off of notation or keep flipping back and forth through the game explorer.

It doesn't do anything to teach me the theory behind the choices, but maybe once I am used to the opening and have memorized it enough, one of the videos on here will be easier to follow and therefore make more sense and teach me more.

XxNo..., please just pick two openings as I previously suggested, and read a little about the ideas behind the opening. No need to memorize a lot of lines. Players at your level will play wicked moves anyway, and soon you'll be out of book. 

Go over your games with a chess engine, and I'm guessing it will show that the score swings back and forth during the game, maybe as much as +/-10 (or more). If this is the case, and I would be surprised if it wasn't, then there is really no need for you to study openings, since no matter what opening is played it will be poor moves, blunders and what have you, during the middlegame and endgame that will determine the outcome. 

I've been absorbed by chess for 700+ hours since August, and mistakenly wasted quite a bit of time studying openings in the beginning. Had I known what I know now, I would have used my time differently. (You can read about my journey on my blog. It might be helpful to you, so you avoid making the same mistakes as I did)

if it were my first, i wouldnt even suggest e4 as white. d4 is much better for beginners, because the number of responses is considerably smaller than e4. If i were you, i would look up the queens gambit for white, and look up a defense for e4 and a defense for d4 (those being the two most common opening moves for white). You should start with more than one defense. Just pick up the first few opening moves for a couple defenses and one opening as white and see where you go from there; pick and choose what you like and play it when you want. theres not real way to learn openings, because people learn openings based on how they like to play the game, so nothing really works for everyone.

Estragon's right.  The best thing is to play, and learn from your mistakes.  You would be suprised how easy it is to do the former and not the latter.  This applies to everything, not just openings.

Chess Position Trainer is a good free program, but it's only for memorizing lines.  IMO playing over master games, reading books, and learning through trial and error are more productive ways to learn an opening, rather than flashcard type programs.

 It is easy to say just play them, but that's what I was saying earlier. I'd learn a few standard opening moves to a common opening and go into a game hoping to try it out. Then the opponent does something completely different on move 1 and there is no way for me to try it out.

It is also easy for someone to say just play and learn from middle and end game. Well if your so bad at the opening game then your middle game is in a bad spot and what you end up learning from that is that you are  in a bad spot and are going to lose.

I don't expect to learn all the best theory/openings/strategies in a day. I just want to get to the point where I feel I can do a decent opening and have a good shot at a solid game to learn from, even if I lose every time.

Going through lots of game exploring on this site is fun, but without a bunch of commentary from an expert you aren't going to learn why they did what they did only what they did. I've played with the tactics trainer a lot, but again it doesn't do you much if your opening is played so poorly that the opponent has a huge advantage over you from the start.

Maybe I just learn differently than others.

I think he was calling chess the best system for learing openings. The best program is practice in a real game.

I'm not trying to be rude or patronizing but judging from your rating you should start concentrating on learning all the basic mates, the Lucena Positon, the Sq of the Pawn and other ENDGAME concepts first. Once you know them you'll have something down that will never be refuted or "upgraded" as opening theory often is. Also many "endgame" concepts apply to middlegames and even openings believe it or not.For now just play whatever openings you fancy but try to limit them to as few as possible and try playing them from both sides of the bd if possible. After each game look the opening up and try to correct any of your errors or blunders and just learn a few more moves of that opening. You should also concentrate on learning tactics and pattern recognition before you begin a really involved study of any particular opening. And of course pay attn to other suggestions here, some will work for you, others won't. GOOD LUCK!

XxNo..., here's a challenge for you. If you try it, I'm rather certain you'll see with your own eyes that the opening is more or less irrelevant at your level. 

Choose 10 openings from the Game Explorer, and go to the position 10 moves into the game. Play a chess engine (with the rating set at about your rating) from this position - you playing White, the engine playing Black. Do this 100 times with each opening. Yes, that's 1,000 games. When done, see what your score is with each opening. My guess is that the score will be more or less the same, with all the openings. If this assumption is correct, then we have empirically showed that the opening choice (at your level) isn't that important.

And should it turn out differently, with your scoring significantly better with a couple of openings, well, then I was wrong, but now you'll have found the openings you should play. 

For me, I have been working on developing position on the board and how it helps or hinders my game success.  My rating is very low for my skill level as I had a tourney that was lost due to connection issues recently.  I would be around the same rating as the OP if that had not happened.

Having only recently started studying openings, which I find confusing, I can relate to your frustration.  I find this approach of studying postion rather than a set of moves works well as it pertains to opening, middle and end game and how they affect one another.  As many of the commenters said, at our level the set moves do not really pertain as our opponents do not know them either yet.

Good luck and challenge me if you want to practice?

ok...  lazy mans treatise on chess openings:

understand the objective to understand the opening.

the objective is either to a) pile all your pieces up in the middle of the board...  or b) prevent your opponent from piling up all his pieces in the middle of the board...  or sometimes c) let your opponent pile all his pieces up in the middle of the board, and then take the middle back, relying on pure awesomeness.

personally, i suggest piling all your pieces up in the middle of the board.  you can frequently kick some serious butt from that position.

actually i agree with flashey^, knowing the objective is alot more important then memorizing all the lines. if you know your goals and know the first few moves you should be fine. just play alot and youl learn whichever openings you choose