cnt = {'2': 2, '3': 1, '4': 7, '5': 4} # fill the line below with all possible tiles tiletypes = {'2': 1, '3': 1, '4': 1, '5': 1} finalcount = {} for tile in cnt: tiletype = tiletypes[tile] finalcount[tiletype] = finalcount.get(tiletype,0) + cnt[tile] print finalcount