pronunciation of don't + want - British accent

[svetlana14]

I am listening to an episode from a British movie and I cannot distinguish in the speech a combination of don't + want. It appears that the speaker (deliberately) drops the last t in don't and the last t in want. I have got subtitles. Can you please enlarge on these rules? Please correct me if you feel that my conclusion (based on my listening) is not correct. Thank you very much.

 

[SoothingDave]

Yes, this happens in normal speech in many accents of English.

Ending "t"s are dropped or "elided," especially when it blends into the following word.

 

[anzara]

A good rule to learn:
t and d between two vowels usually disappear in fast natural speech. This applies across word boundaries as well as within words e.g.

frien(d)s, firs(t) time, ask(ed) questions

This should make your speech more connected and fluent, and it avoids the difficulties of trying to pronounce lots of consonants together!

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, it's very common (not just in British English) to drop the final position /t/ sound. This is, perhaps, most clearly heard with the word 'it'.

 

[Raymott]

I think it's worthwhile pointing out to students that this occurs naturally. You should not assume that you can drop 't' at the end of words if you want to be understood. People in the same region of Britain might understand "Don wanna", but with a Russian accent "I don't want to" is far more likely to be understood - at least until dropping these letters becomes natural.
Of course, it's necessary to know about this for comprehension purposes.