import collections message = [['H', 'x', 'l', '4', '!'], ['c','e','-','l','o'], ['z','e','6','l','g'], ['H','W','l','v','R'], ['q','9','m','#','o']] final_word = '' for j in range(0, len(message)): my_list = [] for i in message: my_list.append(i[j]) counter = collections.Counter(my_list) final_word += str(counter.most_common()[0][0]) print(final_word)