hangman program, error: cannot find symbol, buffered reader? Java newbie
<p>Here is the part part of my program with most of the errors:</p>

<pre><code>    //play method
    private void play() throws IOException
    {
        do {
            guess(alphabet);
            usedLetters(used, alphabet);

            do {
                System.out.println("You have already guessed this " + alphabet + " and the others listed above.");
                guess(alphabet);
            } while (letterUsed == true);//will keep asking until letter was not used

            if (letterUsed == false)
            {
                life--;
                underWord(currentWord , checkLetter, used);
            } //only if the letter was not used, it will be checked for in the current word trying to be solved

            if (life == 0) {
                checkWord(currentWord , checkLetter);
            }
        } while (checkLetter != currentWord);

    }
</code></pre>

<p>This method in particular has all the errors at the moment. I need to ask for the user's guess of 1 alphabet, then check if it is in the word that they are currently trying to guess. I also store all the letters they have already guessed to make sure that they wont lose lives for guessing the same letter twice. So her I have three arrays, one to store the used letters, one to store the parts of the word that have been already guessed(and parts where an _ is necessary) and one that stores the word they are trying to guess. Is there a better way I could write this method below to do its required task?</p>

<pre><code>//underWord method to return the word with all characters not in letters replaced by _'s
private void underWord(char currentWord[] , char checkLetter[], char used[]) throws IOException //add parameters what it recieves
{

    for (int i = 0; i&lt;currentWord.length; i++) {
       for (int index = 0; index&lt;checkLetter.length; index++){
               if (used.contains(currentWord.charAt(i)))
            {
                checkLetter[index] =  currentWord.charAt(i);
            }

            else
            {
                checkLetter[index] = '_';
            }
          }
    }
    for (int i = 0; i &lt; checkLetter.length; i++)
    {
        System.out.println(checkLetter[i]);
    }
}//End of maskWord method
</code></pre>

<p>I compile and the following shows:</p>

<pre><code>C:\Users\HOME\Documents\JCreator LE\MyProjects\twoHangman\src\twoHangman.java:289: error: cannot find symbol
               if (used.contains(currentWord.charAt(i)))
                                            ^
symbol:   method charAt(int)
location: variable currentWord of type char[]

C:\Users\HOME\Documents\JCreator LE\MyProjects\twoHangman\src\twoHangman.java:291: error: cannot find symbol
                checkLetter[index] =  currentWord.charAt(i);
                                                 ^
symbol:   method charAt(int)
location: variable currentWord of type char[]

C:\Users\HOME\Documents\JCreator LE\MyProjects\twoHangman\src\twoHangman.java:312: error: cannot find symbol
    alphabet = kb.readline().charAt(0);
                 ^
symbol:   method readline()
location: variable kb of type BufferedReader
</code></pre>

<p>It's my first time using Buffered Reader, and I am not sure what is wrong</p>

<pre><code>//guess method to ask for user's guess

private void guess(char alphabet) throws IOException//add parameters what it recieves
{
    System.out.println("Guess a letter in this 5-letter word: ");
    alphabet = kb.readline().charAt(0);
    used[dataSize] = alphabet;
    //adds guess to used letters array

}


//usedLetters method to check if user's guess has already been guessed
private boolean usedLetters(char used[], char alphabet) throws IOException
{
    for(int x=0; x&lt;used.length; x++)
    {
        if(alphabet == used[x])
        {
            letterUsed = true;
            return letterUsed;
        }
        else
        {
            letterUsed = false;
            return letterUsed;
        }
     }

     for (int index = 0; index &lt; used.length; index++) {
        System.out.println(used[index]);
    }


}


//checkWord method to see if the user has got the correct word

private void checkWord(char currentWord[], char checkLetter[]) throws IOException
{
    for(int x=0; x&lt;currentWord.length; x++)
    {
        if(checkLetter == currentWord)
        {
            System.out.println("HUZZAH! You have guessed the word!");
            System.out.println("You have completed this game of hangman.");
            menu();
        }

        System.out.println("You have run out of guesses!");
        System.out.println("The word was:");
        for (int index = 0; index &lt; currentWord.length; index++)
        {
            System.out.print(currentWord[index]);
        }
        menu();
    }
}
</code></pre>
