🚀 Day 76/150 – Count Word Frequency in Python

Counting the frequency of words is a common task in text analysis, data processing, and natural language processing (NLP). It helps us determine how many times each word appears in a sentence or paragraph.

Let's explore different ways to count word frequencies in Python.

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🔹 Method 1 – Using Dictionary

The most fundamental approach is to use a dictionary.

text = "python is easy and python is powerful"

words = text.split()
freq = {}

for word in words:
    freq[word] = freq.get(word, 0) + 1

print(freq)

Output

{
'python': 2,
'is': 2,
'easy': 1,
'and': 1,
'powerful': 1
}

Explanation

• split() converts the sentence into a list of words.
• get(word, 0) returns the current count or 0 if the word doesn't exist.
• Each occurrence increases the count by 1.

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🔹 Method 2 – Taking User Input

text = input("Enter a sentence: ") words = text.split() freq = {} for word in words: freq[word] = freq.get(word, 0) + 1 print(freq)

Example Input

hello world hello python

Output

{
'hello': 2,
'world': 1,
'python': 1
}

🔹 Method 3 – Using count()

A simple approach for small datasets.


text = "python is easy and python is powerful"

words = text.split()

for word in set(words):
    print(word, ":", words.count(word))






Output

python : 2
is : 2
easy : 1
and : 1
powerful : 1



Explanation

• set(words) removes duplicates.
• count() counts occurrences of each word.
• Less efficient for large texts because it scans the list repeatedly.

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🔹 Method 4 – Using Function

def word_frequency(text):
    freq = {}

    for word in text.split():
        freq[word] = freq.get(word, 0) + 1

    return freq

print(word_frequency("python is easy and python is powerful"))









Output

{
 'python': 2,
 'is': 2,
 'easy': 1,
 'and': 1,
 'powerful': 1
}


Explanation

• Encapsulates the logic inside a reusable function.
• Makes the code cleaner and easier to maintain.
  
  

  🔥 Key Takeaways

  ✔️ Use a dictionary for learning the logic behind frequency counting.

  ✔️ get() helps avoid checking whether a key exists.

  ✔️ Counter is the most efficient and Pythonic solution.

  ✔️ Word frequency analysis is widely used in data science and NLP.

  ✔️ split() is commonly used to convert text into words.