It may make some difference which kind of negatives you have. If they're from "slide film" they'll have been processed via a color reversal process so the colors will be as in the scene. If they're print negatives, the negatives will likely be in "reversed color" so it may be very difficult to tell what the images are.
If you have a scanner of any kind, you can make (color) scans of the negatives. You don't really need a "film scanner" to get good quick-look results. I'd suggest using at least a 600 dpi scan - maybe 1200 dpi if your scanner can do it (negatives are pretty small). In many photo editing programs, you can "reverse the colors" to get a fairly easy "true color" image you can examine on the screen. (In Photoshop Elements, Image|Adjustments|Invert will do it nicely.)
With experience, you can learn to interpret reverse-color negatives fairly easily; but without some experience the results can be "error-friendly."