The language sites I frequent (Japanese, German & Portuguese) are all tolerant with respect to beginners' questions. A simple question can still be a good question.
The format for good simple questions is often
Here is a sentence/text from [my textbook called X / this website (link) / etc.]. I understand [this part of it], but I'm not sure what [this other part] is supposed to mean. I tried to look up [these words] in a dictionary, but [I couldn't find them / whatever].
In other words, it shows what the learner did him/herself to answer the question and shows clearly at what stage the beginner is, what they do understand and what they don't. Ideally a good simple question is instructive to read for other beginners, too.
There are bad simple questions, too.
What are the letters of the alphabet?
What is a verb?
Why is Latin so difficult?
Some of these can be turned into better or good simple questions, for example
Considering that the letters K, Y & Z were only used in loanwords, did these letters belong to the Latin alphabet right from the start, or were they introduced later?
(I'm just making this up as I go.) This invites a detailed answer, which might give early citations for these letters, etc. The original, bad question invites bad answers.
So as long as your beginner's question doesn't fall into the "bad question" category, I think you shouldn't be afraid of downvotes. (But you should also be prepared to think well about your question before posting it.)
