file = open("C:\python37\paradise.txt", 'r') 
  
while 1: 
      
    # read by character 
    char = file.read(2)
    if not char:  
        break
          
    print(char) 
  
file.close() 

# dictionary to store count of each word (2 characters) eg. "an": 2
wordDict = {}

file = open("paradise.txt", 'r')
# read each line in file
for line in file:
    # read each word in line
    for word in line.split():
        # get only first two letters of word
        word = word[:2]
        # If word is not in dictionary then add it
        if word not in wordDict:
          wordDict[word] = 1
        # else increment the count
        else:
          wordDict[word] += 1

file.close()

# print all values
for key, val in wordDict.items():
  print(key, val)

# print total
print(f"Total: {sum(wordDict.values())}")

file = open('h.txt', 'r') 
   
for each in file: 
    print (each) 
k=each.split()       
###print(k)
j=[]
for i in k:
   ### print(i[:2])
    j.append(i[:2])

###print(j)
result = dict((k, j.count(k)) for k in j)
print(result)
print("total--",sum(result.values()))

file.close()

Output:
h.txt input file:
Here is an example from this text and its for show!

py g.py

Here is an example from this text and its for show!
{'He': 1, 'is': 1, 'an': 2, 'ex': 1, 'fr': 1, 'th': 1, 'te': 1, 'it': 1, 'fo': 1, 'sh': 1}
total--  11

from collections import Counter

# Content of the file: Here is an example from this text and its for show!

with open('two_chars_count.csv', 'r') as f:
    count = Counter(word[:2].lower() for line in f for word in line.split())

print(*(f'{k}: {v}' for k, v in count.items()), sep='\n')

he: 1
is: 1
an: 2
ex: 1
fr: 1
th: 1
te: 1
it: 1
fo: 1
sh: 1