> I don't see the difference honestly. both are pretty loose.

There's a clear difference, in PHP 1 + "1" is 2, in Python it's a TypeError, (and as a bonus, in Javascript 1 + "1" is "11").

The definition of "strongly typed" being used is related to type coercion, not type inference. In PHP the string is being coerced to an integer, but Python requires you to explicitly say 1 + int("1") if you want to add the numbers together. This can be helpful to developers because it requires you to make a decision about what behavior you actually want rather than assuming you want to add two numbers or concatenate strings when you may have wanted the opposite.