The usediagnostics; pragma can also be helpful to beginners. See, in particular, the second reason in the "Common reasons" list. (Sorry for all the line-wrap.)

>perl -le
"use warnings;
 use strict;
 use diagnostics;
 ;;
 my $string = 'no semicolon at end of this statement'
 if (1 > 0) { print 'ok' }
"
syntax error at -e line 1, near ") {"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors (#1)
    (F) Probably means you had a syntax error.  Common reasons include
+:

        A keyword is misspelled.
        A semicolon is missing.
        A comma is missing.
        An opening or closing parenthesis is missing.
        An opening or closing brace is missing.
        A closing quote is missing.

    Often there will be another error message associated with the synt
+ax
    error giving more information.  (Sometimes it helps to turn on -w.
+)
    The error message itself often tells you where it was in the line 
+when
    it decided to give up.  Sometimes the actual error is several toke
+ns
    before this, because Perl is good at understanding random input.
    Occasionally the line number may be misleading, and once in a blue
+ moon
    the only way to figure out what's triggering the error is to call
    perl -c repeatedly, chopping away half the program each time to se
+e
    if the error went away.  Sort of the cybernetic version of S<20
    questions>.

BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted at C:/strawberry/perl
+/lib/Carp/
Heavy.pm line 11.
Compilation failed in require at C:/strawberry/perl/lib/Carp.pm line 3
+3.
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