You can use many different clients for interacting with a subversion repository. The simplest way to just view a subversion repository is to just visit the URL in a browser. If you want to interact with a subversion repository, that is read and write to it, you'll need to use Oracle JDeveloper, TortoiseSVN on Windows or Eclipse on Windows, Mac, Linux. You need three pieces of information to access a Subversion repository:

1. URL: eg: http://sub.spicevan.com/sub/
2. Username: eg: ftravers
3. Password: eg: blahblahblah

When working on a project, get these three pieces of information and a client to work with the repository and off you go.

You can also create a local repository with for example tortoiseSVN. Be careful to select the file system format and not the berkely db format, this way you are able to copy the repository around. This way you also don't have to have access to the subversion host. Sometimes subversion refuses to work correcly via proxy servers.