But you can make the same argument for any non-englisb language today - any language is more difficult to use than English when it comes to computers. For the general case, if your friend was living in China, it'd be the norm, there wouldn't be any Saturday classes. The diaspora has to make do. Moreover, in China, it is the norm, they do not perceive their writing as being problematically difficult, they've made do with it for some years now and it works in China.
I do want to stress that any language that is old enough will eventually contort into a state where the writing is lagging behind the spoken language as it develops faster, and eventually lots of room for optimization starts to appear, lots of legacy to remove. As the culture develops and the spoken language simplifies and words get added, ambiguity seeps in, rudimentary language construcs start to appear unfamiliar to the commmon speaker. The vocabulary now consists of a large mix of old and new, with some redundancy and barbarisms thrown in for good measure. And now, there's lots of room for improvement. And sometimes a nation (or its authorities) decides that its time to simplify things, as mainland China and Sweden and others have done. I wish someone did this with English, bit since there's a multiplicity of English speaking countries, there will never be a meaningful overhaul that doesn't turn into a massive mess.
I do want to stress that any language that is old enough will eventually contort into a state where the writing is lagging behind the spoken language as it develops faster, and eventually lots of room for optimization starts to appear, lots of legacy to remove. As the culture develops and the spoken language simplifies and words get added, ambiguity seeps in, rudimentary language construcs start to appear unfamiliar to the commmon speaker. The vocabulary now consists of a large mix of old and new, with some redundancy and barbarisms thrown in for good measure. And now, there's lots of room for improvement. And sometimes a nation (or its authorities) decides that its time to simplify things, as mainland China and Sweden and others have done. I wish someone did this with English, bit since there's a multiplicity of English speaking countries, there will never be a meaningful overhaul that doesn't turn into a massive mess.