i would like to have both the chrome and safari browers on my macbook air desktop

Yes there is and yes you can.

Click on the Go Menu in the Finder and select Applications. Scroll through the folder until you see the icons you're interested in and drag them to the dock or the desktop.

No need to put them on the desktop, just drag their icons into the dock instead. A lot tidier that way;

The dock is the long thing (usually) at the bottom of your screen.

Yes. Just drag them to the Desktop. You can also put both of them in the Dock or put aliases to them on the Desktop. Copies, clones, links and aliases- summary in tables