How to pronounce "wastes"?

[Rowan]

My classmate said that the word "wastes" should be read with the "tes" at the end dropped, like "weis".

However, my teachers usually read the word like "weists" or "weis:s".

This confuses me a little bit and I can't check out the actual pronunciation of the word anywhere. Hope anyone who knows the exact pronuncation of the word can help solve the problem.

[Soup]

Click wastes - Pronunciation from www.howjsay.com

[BobK]

My classmate said that the word "wastes" should be read with the "tes" at the end dropped, like "weis".

However, my teachers usually read the word like "weists" or "weis:s".

This confuses me a little bit and I can't check out the actual pronunciation of the word anywhere. Hope anyone who knows the exact pronunciation of the word can help solve the problem.

No need. The phoneme /t/ is present; in less formal contexts individual speakers may 'swallow' the [t] sound to some extent.

b

[Raymott]

My classmate said that the word "wastes" should be read with the "tes" at the end dropped, like "weis".

However, my teachers usually read the word like "weists" or "weis:s".

This confuses me a little bit and I can't check out the actual pronunciation of the word anywhere. Hope anyone who knows the exact pronuncation of the word can help solve the problem.

The proper pronunciation is /weists/.
The /t/ might be very weak or missing, but this is not because it is supposed to be pronounced that way. It's just that your tongue gets a bit crowded.

[Rowan]

Thanks for everyone's answer.

I was a little unsure because my classmate insisted on his pronunciation and said that he learnt that from BBC.com. I tried looking up the dictionary to decide who's right but couldn't find a situation similar to the one in this case.

Thanks again to everyone.