我不知道“最简单的”，但简单的理解可以做到:

>>> my_string = "Mary had a little lamb"
>>> sum(char == 'a' for char in my_string)
4

利用内置的和，生成器理解和bool是整数的子类的事实:如何乘字符等于'a'。

要获得所有字母的计数，请使用集合。计数器:

>>> from collections import Counter
>>> counter = Counter("Mary had a little lamb")
>>> counter['a']
4

正则表达式?

import re
my_string = "Mary had a little lamb"
len(re.findall("a", my_string))

spam = 'have a nice day'
var = 'd'


def count(spam, var):
    found = 0
    for key in spam:
        if key == var:
            found += 1
    return found
count(spam, var)
print 'count %s is: %s ' %(var, count(spam, var))

“不使用计数查找字符串中需要的字符”方法。

import re

def count(s, ch):

   pass

def main():

   s = raw_input ("Enter strings what you like, for example, 'welcome': ")  

   ch = raw_input ("Enter you want count characters, but best result to find one character: " )

   print ( len (re.findall ( ch, s ) ) )

main()

a = 'have a nice day'
symbol = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
for key in symbol:
    print(key, a.count(key))