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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Dictionaries Word Count

Ben Hedgepeth
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Ben Hedgepeth
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 10,287 Points
Posted by Ben Hedgepeth
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Ben Hedgepeth
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 10,287 Points

Dictionary challenge: Retrieve keys from a string (Word Count)

I've put some effort in solving this challenge, but it is not good enough. I've added some captions into my code to explain what I'm trying to do. Any help/tips are very much appreciated. Thank you.

wordcount.py 
# E.g. word_count("I do not like it Sam I Am") gets back a dictionary like:
# {'i': 2, 'do': 1, 'it': 1, 'sam': 1, 'like': 1, 'not': 1, 'am': 1}
# Lowercase the string to make it easier.

def word_count(string):
    words_in_string = strings.lower().split()
    my_dict = {}


    for word in words_in_string:
        # count how many times the word appears in the string
        str_occurances = string.count(word[:len(string)])

        removal_counter = str_occurances

        # remove each instance of the word in `words_in_string` to avoid duplicate keys
        while removal_counter > 0:
            words_in_string.remove(word)
            removal_counter -= 1

    # add the generated key (and value) from `words_in_string` to `my_dict
    my_dict[word] = str_occurances

    return my_dict