human_delta.py

from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta
import datetime


def human_readable(delta):
    names = [
        'years',
        'months',
        'days',
        'hours',
        'minutes',
        'seconds'
    ]

    items = []

    for name in names:
        amount = getattr(delta, name)

        if amount > 0:
            items.append('{0} {1}'.format(amount, name))

    return ' '.join(items)


print(human_delta(relativedelta(datetime.datetime.now(), datetime.datetime(
    year=2014,
    month=1,
    day=12)
)))