Here's a bit of critique...

for $i (@phrase) {
    $wordfreq{"$phrase[ $j ]"}++;
#    print "$wordfreq{\"$phrase[ $j ]\"} appears $wordfreq{\"$phrase[ 
+$j ]\"}\n";
    $j++;
}
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First, in each run of the loop over @phrase, $i holds the particular element, so you can be saying $wordfreq{$i}++ instead of $wordfreq{$phrase[$j]}. Second, you're using quotes around $phrase[$j] that are totally unnecessary. Third, your (commented out) print statement probably should have looked like: print "$i appears $wordfreq{$i} times\n";.

As for your "trouble formatting the report", maybe you should print some newlines or something.

for my $word (keys %wordfreq) {
  print "$word appears $wordfreq{$word} times\n";
}
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