Things that surprise you about Spanish
Not sure which category this should be in but ....
What surprises you about the Spanish language?
I will start with a simple one.
It surprises me that is there no one word for "toes" in Spanish.
After several 1000 years I would think one would have "appeared". 
While I am at it how does one say "big toe" in Spanish?
8 Answers
I started learning Spanish about 5 years ago with a few books and a CD and took to it like duck to water. I still remember opening the book at the first chapter - "pronunciation". I was surprised... no...amazed at how simple it was.
Incidentally - 6 months later I took some lessons with an amateur teacher from Lima, Peru. She was surprised that I had already learned how to pronounce the words.
"How do you know that !?!?" she asked
"I read it on page 7" I replied 
We all moan about the grammar but - let's be honest - Spanish orthography could hardly be easier. That's what still surprises me about Spanish.
What surprises me (or stumped me when I first started learning) is that you use ser when describing the location of an event ie. "El concierto es en ese teatro." and estar when describing the location of a building. It would seem the location of an event is much less permanent than the location of a building... 
By the way, Ian-hill and MeEncanta, would any of you tell me the names of the five fingers? In Spanish, these are:
Pulgar (el gordo)
Indice (el que señala)
Corazón (el del medio)
Anular (donde colocamos el anillo)
Meñique (el pequeño)
Gracias
What surprised me was the fact that "amor" is a noun instead of a verb.
Big toe: dedo gordo del pie.... And while I'm at it- little toe: meñique del pie
*"meñique" means "pinky"
The word "cabrahigar", even though it does come more or less directly from Latin. The next surprise was when google translated it to "sycamores". 
All the syllables. It’s as if the longer the word the more they like it. English is full of one syllable words. They seem rare in Spanish. My favorite so far is traffic jam: el embotellamiento.
Es muy increible como algunas palabras polacas y espa?olas se parecen. En polaco hay un verbo "firmowa?" que también significa "to sign with your name" Por supuesto hay muchas semejanzas entre espa?ol e ingles, claro. Pero Polonia esta mas lejos de Espa?a que Inglaterra. No conozco muchas palabras espa?oles pero hay mucho más tal palabras como por ejemplo: las pantuflas, la fábrica. La cultura espa?ola es totalmente diferente de la polaca pero cuando veo tan casos tengo mis dudas acerca de esta afirmación. Disculpad mis errores de espa?ol.
I will try
Thumb
Index finger
Middle finger
Ring finger
Little finger (or pinky)
