join(), split(), convert a string to a list of characters

In [2]: a = "guten tag"

In [3]: a.split( ' ')
Out[3]: ['guten', 'tag']

In [4]: list(a)
Out[4]: ['g', 'u', 't', 'e', 'n', ' ', 't', 'a', 'g']

In [5]: ";".join(list(a))
Out[5]: 'g;u;t;e;n; ;t;a;g'