Should beginners play the English?

Me too, but unfortunately Marvin and ParanoidAndroid were already taken here. :)

I didnt not know anything, so I only played the english for 4 months straight. I have played chess for one year but really the first 6 or 7 months I was playing blitz games on my android and had no idea what I was doing. then I learned an opening cause I was confused, and it was the english and it was all I played. So I probably really screwed myself lol

The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.
"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her.
And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

Of course beginners should play the English. I would, however, advise beginners to stay away from playing the Russians.

To all interested, I made a reverse sicilian themed tournament (1. c4 e5). Seems like this would appeal to a lot of English players. Note: >1700 player rating range. http://www.chess.com/tournament/reverse-sicilian

Being contrary for a 2013 discussion? Anyway, one often sees the advice that beginners not use the Sicilian.

I started playing English since 500 rating and I must agree , it’s difficult asf to improve and increase elo coz u must have broad knowledge to achieve advantage in an English opening .......... but it’s also true that very few ppl below 1300 expect an English opening 

Have you tried out the Botvinnik System?

Its a solid and easy system to learn that plays well against blacks fianchetto lines or 1.c4, c5.

You can also play it in reversed as black against a fellow English player or blacks fianchetto lines.

Its good to have an alternative plan because you don’t always get an enjoyable reversed Sicilian game.

I don't think Botvinnik is very good against 1...e5 though.

In general the English is a pretty difficult opening to understand, so personally I wouldn't really recommend it for beginning players.

I definitely don’t disagree with you.

I am suggesting the Botvinnik System as a reply when black goes to the Anglo-Indian game or any fianchetto lines. White may as well grab the center and play for the imbalance positions.

As an English player at the club level, I always like to see e5 and get into a reversed Sicilian game but you will alternatively run into an Anglo-Indian game or the odd c5.

No.

Bad idea in my opinion because to make it simple if we play against machines, they make us understand that as humans our worst positions are the so-called equal positions.

1) The first worst of all are the positions without the queens. Example 1) e4-e6 2) d3-d5 3) Nc3-dxe4 4) dxe4-Qxd1+ 5) Kxd1

2) The second worst positions are the symmetrical positions. Example 1) e4-e6 2) d4-d5 3) exd5-exd5

Against the machine there is another type of position that can be unbearable: "position too complex, need to think too much and I only have 5 minutes". Example 1) e4-e6 2) d4-d5 3) Nc3-Bb4 4) e5-c5 5) a3-Bxc3+ 6) bxc3-Ne7 7) Qg4-Qc7 8) Qxg7-Rg8 9) Qxh7-cxd4 but against human players it is not at all unbearable and can even be fun (whereas the 2 cases of positions that I quoted above can be unbearable whether it is against humans or machines). 

So in simplified terms any other move than 1) e4 and 1) d4 is not a good basic idea because the opponent may opt for symmetrical position strategies.

These so-called equal positions are rather when you are a gosu, a guy who has seen a lot of strong AI vs AI games or who has studied the finals etc. When you are a beginner, you should play positions where you have strategic ideas, a game plan etc. like o-o vs o-o-o positions or East-Indian defense type positions.

(FYI : as in any game you have to play against opponents (AI or humans) of about your own level because playing against too strong or too weak is a waste of time, in my opinion)  

I just played the English opening in chess against the computer at easy level won three draw one computer are very clever