Ways to say “rice” in Japanese
Japundit has an interesting post about how the Japanese are not satisfied with only one word for rice. There are many ways to say rice in Japanese, including several not mentioned in the article.
I remember once at my high school, the teacher was translating something involving “rice” from English to Japanese, and he translated it as gohan, (ご飯), which is cooked rice that you eat, instead of kome, (米), which is uncooked rice. Since I have to pretend that I don’t know Japanese, even though the students know I do, I had to wait until after the lesson to correct him. The students didn’t get the correct information, but his delicate “face” was preserved. 
(Just another case of how blindly following a set of arbitrary rules is rather idiotic and counterproductive at times, but I digress…)
