Openings for black

What are some good openings for black to study for someone new and how should I study them? I seem to lose some pieces in the middle at first or get real congested trying to set up castle... I have CPT 3.3 but it seems complicated to learn how to use but I am figuring it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

If you're new to the game, you should first focus on your answer to 1.e4

- if you want to learn a lot about chess, try to answer 1.e4 with 1...e5 and 2.Nf3 with 2...Nc6

- if you want to develop your fighting skills first, answer 1.e4 with 1...c5 (sicilian) and learn the Sicilian Dragon (and maybe you can consider joining the group Dragon's cave )

- if you'd prefer to feel safer and more in control at the board, try the French defence (1...e6), or the Caro-Kann defence (1...c6)

I wouldn't recommend using another defence as your first choice, unless you have some particularly good reason for it.

To study the opening, the first step is to understand the basic ideas of the opening you've chosen : if you can't figure it out by yourself or with books/web resources, ask a fellow chess player or the people in the forums.

I would start with learning king pawn games 1.e4 e5, there are some important tactical ideas and it the simplest most straight forward way to start the game.