Едва я открыл дверь, как собака начала лаять.

Hardly had I opened the door when the dog started barking.

Breakdown of Едва я открыл дверь, как собака начала лаять.

• я: I
• собака: the dog
• открыть: to open
• дверь: the door

Questions & Answers about Едва я открыл дверь, как собака начала лаять.

What does the pattern едва ..., как ... mean?

It is a common Russian pattern that shows one event happened and almost immediately another followed.

A very natural English equivalent is:

• Hardly/Scarcely had I opened the door when the dog started barking
• No sooner had I opened the door than the dog started barking

So едва here does not just mean barely in the usual sense; in this structure it has a temporal meaning: as soon as / hardly had ... when ...

Is как here the usual word meaning how?

No. In this sentence, как is not asking how something happened.

Here it is part of the fixed pattern едва ..., как ... and works like a conjunction, roughly equivalent to:

• when
• and then
• in the English pattern hardly ... when / no sooner ... than

So in this sentence, как is grammatical glue, not a question word.

Why is the verb открыл and not открыла?