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I really like my Ricoh GR II, and I think it'd be a good beginner camera for a few reasons. It is to start not a camera with interchangeable lens, it's literally a point and shoot. It's also however a very robust camera for a point and shoot, with functions one would expect to find on entry level rangefinder style cameras. The image quality is also very good, and the camera can shoot in RAW. This allows you to concentrate on the different functions of the camera and to practice the actual art of composition and framing without getting wrapped up in gear questions.
The lens in the Ricoh also happens to be very wide, and is fixed. This does a couple things, the first being giving the shooter more flexibility in what they shoot. You can capture whatever you want with the camera, as long as you can get close enough to it. That leads to the second piece, it forces you to get up close and personal with your subject. This limitation makes you think more critically about framing and the look of your shot, instead of lazily eyeing something and zooming out to it.
It's also pocketable, so great for street shooting and virtually anything else. You want a camera that you're actually going to use, not some giant DSLR or $1000+ supercamera you'll be too terrified to break to actually shoot with.
To completely undermine my pitch, here's an unedited (save for compression) snapshit I took with the Ricoh.
