Americans pronounce yourself as yer-SEHLF (/jərˈsɛlf/). The L in "yourself" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. This is called the Dark L vs Light L, a hallmark of natural-sounding American speech. It comes out as yer·SEHLF. Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Can you do it by yourself?".
Record yourself saying "yourself" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
Lift the middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth, but stop just short of touching. /j/ is an approximant, not a stop. The tongue tip stays down, lightly resting near the back of your bottom front teeth. Voice runs through the whole gesture, and the tongue glides smoothly down into the next vowel. The lips stay neutral or pre-shape for the upcoming vowel (rounding early for OO in <em>youth</em>, for example).
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.
Keep the tongue tip down and pull the back of the tongue up toward the throat. The 'dark' sound comes from the back.
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
The L in "yourself" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. Dark L adds a small schwa-like "uh" before the L. The back of the tongue lifts toward the soft palate.
Stress falls on the second syllable, not the others. Stretch SEHLF — keep everything else short and quick.
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R — the tongue curls back rather than rolling. The R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it, not two separate sounds.
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