Is 1...e6 a good opening for beginners?

I'm planning to adopt the French as my black opening against 1.e4. Is it a sound opening for beginners? Why or why not?

so should I counter with 1...e5 against e4 everytime? I'm talking about black.

Unless you've noticed already, the French Defense often results in a closed system.  If you're comfortable manoeuvering about that, then it's fine.

Is the Sicilian really a good choice for a beginner? I'd really advise him to play easy, principle based openings: Scotch, Ruy Lopez, Italian game for both sides. The Sicilian has so many lines: it might be the most sound defense at your 2000 level, but I don't think it will work for someone with half the rating.

Focus on studying tactics and endgames.

lol .. nice one ..

Though I´m an 1.d4 and French player, 1...e5 should be played by every beginner to learn all tactic basics. 1...e6 seems to be some defensive but also has crazy variations, and is often underestimated. 

I would remove the Ruy Lopez from the list of easy openings.  Italian game and Scotch are good for beginners.  Beginners would be well advised to stay clear of the Ruy Lopez, there is nothing easy about it.  There are too many defenses that, while theoretically White has a slight positional plus, are much easier to play from the Black side.   Beginners do not need to be playing openings that require great technical technique to over-come the other side's active piece play.

as a beginner you should try to play the same moves everytime. e4, Nf3, Bc4, Nc3, d4, Bg5. Ofcourse dependent on what the opponent plays. Don't study openings yet. If you must study something study tactics and simple endgames. Those will widen your understanding of the game far more than any study of openings at this time.

I recommend Bobby Fischer teaches chess. You can probably lend it at the local library. Pattern recognition is very important at any level.

Silmans Endgame book is good for endgame study because it suits your level and gives you what you need now no matter what rating you have.

Playing many games is good training too. Don't be afraid to test your own ideas. If something looks good to you, play it. If it didn't work out, try to figure out why. Comment your own games and save them for later review.

The advice I was given was that as a novice reply to e4 with e5 and d4 with d5.  This is not because these systems are necessarily "better" than things like the French or the Caro-Kahn, but because they are a good way to learn.  Don't just memorize the openings!!!!!! Learn openings.  Try to understand what is happening on every move and why you are playing each move.  The classical, symmetrical defences like 1..e4 and 1..d5 are a good training ground to see opening principles in action, like the struggle to control the center, rapid development, etc.  Move on the more "advanced" openings later, where the positional issues at stake may be less clear to a beginner. 

A beginner should learn and understand the basic guidelines for opening play. Playing 1... e6 or 1... e5 makes very little difference from a practical beginners point of view.

What a beginner really should do is to promise to avoid opening studies untill a 1800+ rating.

Can you really get to 1800+ without opening memorization or do you have to be a chess genius like Michael de la Maza?   

I am sure that is possible. I even think a lot of players should get there sooner should they spend their time more wise than Opening Memorization.

I haven't personally done it, but I'd say almost certainly yes (and the teachers and such that post on the internet seem to think so). 

If you don't lose pieces to tactical shots, don't miss tactical opportunities, and know your endgames cold, you should have no problems beating sub-1800 players most of the time.  But that's a lot to know/do.

The terms "opening study" can mean different things to different people. If, by that expression, one means "in depth study and memorization of numerous variations," I agree that such things are best left to more experienced and higher rated players. However, if one means instead, "getting some ideas of how a chess opening works by looking at the ideas behind the first few moves of an established opening," I'm a strong believer that beginners can profit from some modest study.

To give a beginner one or two moves and throw him out there to reinvent the game on his own is like asking him to reinvent the automobile by telling him, "Pssst ... buddy ... wheels are round. Good luck."

Trying to learn a complex system with all its subtle variations IS time wasted. Getting a few ideas within a solid, well established opening is time well spent. If a beginner can get four or five or six moves into a game on solid and familiar ground, the chances of learning something useful are a lot greater than winging it, making a subtle mistake on move two or three, and getting killed without having a clue as to why.

The beginner is still going to get beat up by better players, but maybe he'll have some better games against his equals. He might win a few extra games and have some fun, possibly deepening his interest in the game. What's wrong with that?

Well my question would be, why is the opening so different from the middle game?

Get your pieces active, fight for control of the center, don't lose anything to tactics, take advantage of tactical opportunities. For a sub-1800, those should usually be the goals on move 1 and move 11.

 This is spot on.  When people tell beginners not to study the opening they mean deep opening study.  Many people get the false notion that they have to have a full blown opening book like a titled player to sit down at the board, and spend far to much time on theory when they should be working on tactics, endgames, and some basic positional skills. 

Some openings study is fine, as long as one is not just sitting down with FCO or MCO or, even worse, some "Win with the X opening" book, and trying to commit it to memory.  Don't memorize, learn.  See how each move in the opening works with a basic opening principle, or counters an enemy threat.  Club level games tend to leave theory early anyway, so you need to be able to think on your feet.  Knowing a few line with genuine understanding, so you can apply the understanding when you have to start improvising is far, far better then the route memorization of many lines.  At lower levels you will almost never get to play those lines anyway, as your opponent will not know the "correct" moves very deeply, if at all, into the system, and you will have to know what is really going on if you want to take advantage of their weak play.

e6 is playable but i don't think it might be a good idea for beginners.They need to learn more in chess and understand the power of pawn structure.It could be true that elo rating of 1800+ might understand the true meaning of closed positions but it is yet to be confirm.

As for many people saying Scilian dragon,i say don't try it,my fellow beginner friends.If an expert fought against you,they might unleash yugoslavia attack which could end with White having a better chance to win.Scilian is never easy to learn.You need to study deeply about it and you musn't have a fear of losing and ready to create imbalance as well trying to be complicated.Scilian is a fighting defense and proven to be strong over the years based on gameplays from strong players like Garry Kasparov himself.

Caro-kann is more friendly towards beginners unlike French but just keep in mind about Panov attack.Easy to learn and you might enjoy it if you want solid gameplay.

Pirc and Modern could be for higher levels but a strong white player can tear them into pieces easily.Modern defense is a suprise defense till now.Pirc is for counter punch.

Never try Alekhine defense for beginners.Very complicated and it requires true understanding of being aggresive.

Centre counter attack is simple and playable in low level games but you must learn the idea of gaining or losing tempo in chess.

Try e5 as it is fine.

Thinking of Petroff defense is ok but it has been famous for black to lose the queen very fast if not careful.Two knights defense is ok and blancing is still favourable.

Just play either e5,d5 or c6 if you are beginner.The rest will be easy to learn as you become stronger in chess.

I agree in principal that beginners should focus on open positions, but diversity can't hurt.  I struggled for quite some time AGAINST the French because I did not understand how to play closed positions.  After adopting the French myself, my score against the French improved and I became more comfortable with closed positions in general.  I wouldn't advocate 1...e6 as the "best" choice, but there are a few factors which are worth noting.

1. Many beginning e4 players do not enjoy playing against the French.  You'll see the exchange variation a lot, which provides a level game with many viable plans for black.  The advance is common too.  Many beginners play it poorly--I fell squarely into this camp.
2. The Rubenstein variation provides very simple plans for black.  It's rock solid, but also a bit passive.

The difference is the starting position. It's a known at the very beginning, therefore it's easy to follow an established opening for a few moves which can allow one to successfully get his pieces active, fight for control of the center, and not lose anything to tactics. As the opening progresses, things usually become more complicated, and sooner or later one will be left to his own devices. I think its better to get a few moves into the game with a good position and have at least a vague idea about the subsequent strategy than just winging it every time.

Some seemingly plausible opening moves which seem to activate a piece and fight for the center have hidden drawbacks. I'm thinking, for example, of 1. d4  d5  2.Nc3. This knight move activates the piece and bears on e4 and d5, yet it is usually frowned upon in d pawn openings as it inhibits the ability of white's c pawn to move to either c4 as in the Queen's Gambit, or to c3 to defend the d pawn as in some other systems. A beginner discovers this ... how? He loses a lot of games and doesn't know why? Let him learn a few things from an opening book.

When I was (more of) a beginner, I thought playing established openings would be boring, and that I should be able to figure things out for myself. The first time I finally broke down and read part of a book, I gained a whole new understanding. I began to see how one could not only get the pieces developed, but get them working in a co-ordinated fashion with an eye to a specific target. I was able to play games from a familiar position, while often my opponents were struggling to figure out what was going on. I won more games and enjoyed the game more. True, a much stronger player might know how to dismantle my system -- but then again, a much stronger player was going to clean my clock no matter what I played. The only difference was, I now was in a better position to understand the way he went about it, even if I didn't know how to stop it.