Let's first have a quick overview of what a beginner should learn, and in which sequence.
1. Step one - basic endings. If you are a beginner, you must learn how to mate with a rook and a king, a queen and a king. You must learn which K+P versus K endings are won and which are drawn. You should know what an "opposition" is and how to use it.
2. Step two - tactics. You should work with the Tactics Trainer on chess.com, the tactics problems on chesstempo.com, the standalone software such as CT-ART 4.0. There is no point in spending time on openings when you overlook a "cheapo" from your opponent.
3. Step three - assess your style of play. There is no point in playing the King's Gambit if you are by nature a cautious player. You must know what your style of play is before choosing an opening repertiore. To that end, you should play x number of games, and then sit down and draw general conclusions at to the type of game you like to play. Do you like Fianchettos? Do you like to castle queenside? Are you comfortable in the endgame? Do you like closed games? etc.
Only after the above steps are completed, should you bother with the openings.
I put together a list of all openings and variation of openings that GM and IM's recommend for beginners to play. All of these I plan to play for a little while in the future I'm posting this as a sorta comfirmation on them if I'm missing something pleas tell what you think a BEGINNER should play thank you.
KID (King Indian Defense)
QID (Queens Indian Defense)
English Opening (I plan to play with and against this opening)
KIA (Kings Indian Attack)
Ruy Lopez Classical Variation (Play with and against)
Italian Game Classical & 2 knight's defense variations (Both side's but not the 2 knights I only plan to play that from white's side).
QG (Queens Gambit)
Petroff Defense (Play with and against)
Catalan Opening (I already play this as one of my main openings but people alway's play the Benko Gambit against me I rarely get to play it. As A result I still don't know the main ideas of the opening
so I'm at a handicap when playing a OTB tournament with it.)
KG:King's Gambit (not to sure about this one for a beginner but one coach suggest to his beginner students to play it after thev'e played the other openings to find out if there tactical (They do well with it) or there more positional (They get lost in the fireworks.) To me the KG has way to much theory for a beginner but he tell's them to only play a select few variations so I guess that's ok
.