Yes. Literacy.
I saw many beginners who treat a compiler like a black box and attempting hand fuzzing until it happened to match the well-formed syntax and behaviour they wanted, while they literally holding a paper text book or opening a browser tab for a tutorial which clearly explain how it works and what they should write in a plain natural and native language of theirs.
One time, I was told by a beginner who copied an example code from a text book that it doesn't work. I looked at it. It was a fizzbuzz code, less than 10 lines. And she typed it wrong. Not just an ordinary typo. She conjured up really strange ill-formed syntax she believe it works somehow. There is a parse error message but she ignored. I pointed out the place on display with a finger and she still didn't get it. I place a text book beside the display but it requires a considerable effort convincing her the cause of the error.
Other time, I was asked why for(;;) ; else ; doesn't work in JavaScript. I kept saying because there is no syntax like that in JavaScript. You have to accept it as is or create your own language.
Sometimes, I wonder some people read natural language text by simple keyword pattern matching. People like above example weren't dumb. Far from it. They are smarter in their field than me. Yet, they failed at this basic literacy level.