[vorg]

> The tones in Chinese really fuck with someone whose native language isn't tonal (and most aren't),

I speak Chinese by learning the sounds of words, but not the tones, in my active learning. If I speak quickly, in complete contextual sentences, using two-syllable words (instead of the one-syllable ones), then people generally understand me. I learn the tones passively afterwards.

> and wouldn't you rather become literate by learning 26-30 symbols than by learning thousands of symbols?

Most Chinese symbols are made up of components, of which there's about 400 to 600, depending on how you count them. E.g. the one character 解 is made up of four components 勹用刀牛.

> but you've got a relatively strict word order,

Introductory lessons in Chinese only present the standard word order, but, like in English, you can arrange the content words of a sentence in many different orders depending on what you want to make thematic or focus on.