While a very old language, the written word was not commonplace in its location until the arrival of the Europeans in the late 19th century with many of the guides and dictionaries being produced in the aftermath of the Second World War such as Charles Taylor's "A Simplified Runyankore-Rukiga-English and English-Runyankore-Rukiga Dictionary" of 1955. Some of the guides give testament to their age by teaching expressions such as "The smith forges spears" and "How fine the cows are" !

When attempting to learn Runyankole, it is important to remember that the language should be seen within its context. For example, in the West there is a twenty-four-hour clock, but in the Runyankole language area, the clock starts at 6 am (marking daylight), so noon would be 6 o'clock and evening similarly starts at 6pm, so 9pm would be 3 o'clock.

To compound these localised influences, Runyankole is generally spoken very quickly, the letters "r" and "l" are interchangeable, r's are rolled, there are many "ch" sounds (written as 'ki' and 'ky') and there are often half a dozen ways of saying the same thing! As such, any attempt to learn Runyankole is fraught with difficulties, and in all likelihood, you will pick up the essentials such as "My name is" (Eizina ryangye nyine); "Yes" (Eego); "No" (Ngaaha) and "Thank you" (Webare) but becoming fluent in conversational Runyankole may take some time!