retrovsyourselfTell them apart

Quick tell: retro is a noun, yourself is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“retro” is a noun and “yourself” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,574
“retro” frequency rank
#21,854
“yourself” frequency rank
34428
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retro yourself
Definition Rückseite [du] dich selbst; [du] dir selbst, [du] selbst

Letter map: retro vs yourself

Shared letters muted; letters that set retro and yourself apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. retro runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against yourself's 8 (VVVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
retro
8 ch
yourself

Part-of-speech tell for retro / yourself

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: retro is anoun and yourselfapronoun. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34428, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retro is recorded at frequency rank #12,574, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. yourself is at rank #21,854, tagged as apron, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 34428, this pair ranks #1,663,557 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of retro vs yourself

Shared letters: eor. Private to "retro": t. Private to "yourself": flsuy.

"retro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "yourself" · 8 letters · shape VVVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retroertro · rerto · retor · retrro · rettro · rretro · rtero
  • yourselfoyurself · yoruself · youreslf · yourrself · yoursefl · yourselff · yoursellf · yourslef

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "retro" for "yourself" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retro" is a noun and "yourself" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "retro" or "yourself" show up more?
"retro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,574 in our German list, against #21,854 for "yourself". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "retro" and "yourself". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "retro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "yourself" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,663,557 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retro" and "yourself" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs yourself". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,663,557 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list