>>>>>> Next task. Learn to pronounce Gruziya (that's how Georgia calls itself, I presume), and Tbilisi (note that the impossible initial TB is not impossible when a whole nation can pronounce it). Find Gruzian web radio or whatever to hear the sound.
>>>>>
>>>>>Because it is not pronounced tb... it is pronounced ti or tə...
>>>
>>>That's anglophonised... from what I heard, there's no schwa between t and b. You can't expect Merriam-Webster to print something that 99.9% of the users are incapable of pronouncing. There was a famous song (in Russian, though) in the sixties, titled after the city, and... BTW, do you pronounce "potbelly" or "potabelly"?
>>
>>I didn't hear any schwa and it's not in the pronounciation... where is it?
>
>So if it's not there between "t" and "b" in "potbelly", why must it be there in "TBilisi"? Because it's at the beginning of a word?

I see it now, you are referring to the 'ə', but interestingly, it is pronounced te as in bet or tah as in bahh bahh black sheep or ti as in bit in the wav files. Don't know why the written pronounciation has tə when it isn't pronounced that way in either of the wav files (a typo?)