I should perhaps clarify that "just use the win32 api" refers to on Windows. Just as one might use syscall 4/write() on Linux, if one doesn't want to/can use libc printf.

See also, for example:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15528359/printing-utf-8-...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26106647/c11-unicode-sup...

http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/unicode.html

Note; I'm not convinced using utf8 internally is a great idea - especially for a "beginner friendly" language. Playing with anything from palindromes to revise strings and character/grapheme counts and

  "d o u b l e  s p a c i n g"

strings can be fun learning exercises - that might be easier with a 32-bit (or even 64 bit) representation.

But no matter how you look at it, there's no such thing as "simple" handling of international text.