How hard is Python to learn?

Python is strongly typed like Java and dynamic typed like PHP. It's generally fairly easy to pick up the basics, I'd say an experienced programmer could be up to speed in a couple of hours (and have come across all of the specific oddities of the language within a couple of weeks).

Recommended reading:

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index (exercise based, by Zed Shaw and an excellent way to jump into the language)

http://diveintopython.org/ (probably the "seminal" book on Python)

Learning the basics can be done pretty quickly, but learning this such as how to write code that is pythonic can take a bit longer.

I'd suggest going through some of the introduction tutorials that Errant suggested, and then trying to work out a lesson plan. Are these students completely new to programming? If so, you'll probably be taking a different approach than if these students are well versed in Java or C.

As a side note, Python also has a lot of built in functionality in its standard library. It may be useful to at least be aware of how you can search it to become more familiar with what it has to offer.

For complete programming novices, I'm still inclined to recommend "How To Think Like A Computer Scientist":

http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/html/book002.html

As a tutor already familiar with other languages, you could definitely skim it yourself and use the material to coach the interested students.

It's hard when you do it the way Zed Shaw teaches it: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index :)

But seriously, it is easy to learn. It's basically 'just another imperative langauge', with some differences. When preparing vor teaching, i would emphasise these differences:

• You should get an understanding how pythons scopes and the method resolution work. In my experience, the tricky questions the students ask are related to these.
• You can and should teach basics of functional programming, it may not be lisp, but understanding something like reduce(op.add, [1,2,3]) is vital for reading pyhton
• You cannot teach PPP with it, python has no (real) language features like private/protected/public. That doesn't mean the concepts can be ignored, they just have to be adressed with the design/style issues.

It's incredibly easy and a great language to learn.

1. The syntax, especially the use of whitespace, is very clean and makes your code look nice without having to learn or teach "elements of style".
2. There is an incredibly rational structure to almost every element of the language. Once you learn the basics, you'll find that you can extrapolate very quickly from there without having to flip through language documentation. No operator overloading on "<<", etc.
3. For when you do actually have to look at the documentation, Python's is very clear.
4. "Batteries included" + a very healthy library/framework ecosystem (e.g. BeautifulSoup, Django, scipy, etc.) means you can do fun stuff fast.

Yes, writing Pythonic code takes some time, but I'd argue it probably takes less time than to write idiomatic code in a lot of other languages.

Can you quickly learn enough Python to do something useful? Yes. From a similar background (C, C++, Java, Javascript, VB6), I taught myself enough Python to write my first useful script in about 1-2 days.

Can you quickly learn enough to teach someone? If you're teaching them a general computer-science/programming subject where Python merely happens to be the medium, then maybe. But if you're teaching Python itself, then no. Python is different enough from all the languages you've mentioned that you wouldn't be able to do justice to it. For me, it took about 1-2 years before I considered myself an intermediate-to-advanced programmer.

Even now, 4 years since I first picked it up, I don't think I could teach an exhaustive course on Python without substantial preparation. For example, I've never built my own multiple inheritance hierarchy in Python, so I don't quite know what the method resolution order is (I know roughly how things are resolved, but not having ever needed to do it, I would need to experiment to be comfortable enough to teach it). If I had to teach, for the first time, a course on Python, I would need at least a month's preparation, perhaps even more.

Of course, this doesn't mean you can't help someone with their Python, just that you shouldn't aim to be their only instructor in the language, since it would be profoundly unfair to both the student and yourself.