MAX II Development Kit with NiosII??

Hi, im trying to use the ata controller projetc "an495" but because my knowledge of verilog and vhdl are vastly limited, im want to use Qsys with NiosII to "interface" the module from the and495 projetc to control it from a higher language level. So my questions are:

1) Can i do this, i mean its recomended or im just to learn to use verilog to run this project (i think it will take me several months to do this)??

2) For the moment im only have the MAX II Development Kit, i know that this CPLD do not have an on chip memory, but can i use the external SRAM to replace it or in other case using and external flash ram??

Any answer will be appreciated, thanks!!!

Inglish its not my native tong, so i apologize if im not 100% readable, i promise i sound a little less stupid in spanish :p