Get the words right
At the start and end of every single class, we bow in and out of lessons. The bowing is accompanied by a little sequence of words that are used to direct everyone's actions. The person who says those words is usually a sensei or senior student, but occasionally the responsibilty for saying them is awarded to a lower grade. Being asked to say these words is a small honour because it's an aknowledgement by your sensei that you have a good attitude and are worthy to direct everyone as they show respect to kancho and everyone else.
It bugs me when, week, after week, after week, I hear students and senseis getting the pronunciation completely wrong. We use very little Japanese in our classes because as Kancho always says, "We're here to learn karate, not Japanese." Furthermore, what Japanese we do use, we tend to pronounce using a kind of "accepted English" pronunciation, rather than anything a Japanese person would say.
However, the pronunciation for all the words in the bow-in, and bow-out is clearly described in the "Welcome to GKR" sheet that everybody receives when they join the club, and it's also listed on just about every GKR web site out there.
There are two words that almost everyone seems to get wrong - they say what they think the words should be, not what they are. The words are "Seiza", which is the instruction to kneel down, and "otaigai ni", which means "To each other" and is the last bow instruction - "Sensei, otagai ni, rei." Almost without fail, people pronounce them as "say zan" and "octo gani".
Cezanne was a French impressionist painter who died in 1906, and to my knowledge, he never did karate or visited Okinawa. Oct means 8, so octogani means 8 ganis. Of course, I don't have the slightest clue what a gani is, or whether or not showing respect to 8 of them is a good thing, but that's not really the point...
The correct GKR pronunciation is "say zar" and "otter guy ee nee". I know it's not a big thing, but if you've been honoured by your sensei with this small duty, surely you want to perform it to the best of your abilities?