What does the @ symbol before a string mean in C#?

Hi everyone! I started learning C# and came across a strange construct in someone else's code. Here's an example: ```csharp string path = @"C:\Users\Admin\Documents\file.txt"; string text = @"Hello, world!"; ``` I see that there is an @ symbol before the string. What does it do? Does the code not work without it? I tried removing @ from the first line, and Visual Studio gave an error about "unrecognized escape sequence". But in the second line, if I remove @, the code seems to work, but the string is displayed on one line instead of two. Please explain why this symbol is needed and when to use it. It seems like some kind of magic that prevents me from understanding how strings work in C#. Thanks in advance! P.S. I also saw that @ is used before variable names, for example `string @class = "test";`. Is this the same thing or not?