Look into how LLMs work and it's pretty clear why these character counting scenarios often fail if not invoking Thinking/Python Scripting.
When I asked gemini, it printed the right answer, and it also had a button: "Show code", which I clicked: word = "strawberry" count = word.lower().count('e') print(f"The number of 'e's in '{word}' is {count}.")
Now, the followup (from a comment below): "How many straws in strawberry": there are 0 "straws" (again with the Python code). Similarly, "How many straw in strawberry": 1 straw (again with the Python code, showing it's just trying to do string matching).
Next: Q: "When I saw straw, I mean the object you use to drink liquids through. How many straw in strawberry?"
A: "While the word strawberry contains the letters to spell "straw" exactly one time, there are zero actual drinking objects inside the fruit. Trying to use a berry as a straw would mostly just result in a very messy snack!"
And even if you haven't and have just read this comment, that's completely fine too and honestly I don't know why really, but I want to just say that I love you all and I love this community and yes it has its problems but I love you all and I wish you all to have a nice day/night!
Going to go to sleep now. Bye!