Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

This is a set expression meaning something like:

• hardly had ... when ...
• no sooner ... than ...
• as soon as ...

So:

Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

means that the second event happened almost immediately after the first one.

A very natural English rendering is:

• Hardly had I turned off the phone when the room became quiet.
• As soon as I turned off the phone, it became quiet in the room.

The idea is not just sequence, but immediate sequence.

After едва, Russian often uses как to introduce the second event:

• Едва ..., как ...

This is a common pattern. It marks the moment when the second action follows the first.

In English, как here does not mean the usual how or like/as. In this structure, it is part of the whole pattern едва ..., как ....

You can think of it as functioning like the when/than part of English expressions such as:

• Hardly had I done X, when Y happened
• No sooner had I done X, than Y happened

So it is best learned as a fixed construction, not word by word.

Выключил is the masculine singular past form of the perfective verb выключить.

The perfective aspect is used because the sentence refers to a completed action:

• I finished turning off the phone
• and then, immediately after that, the room became quiet

If you used the imperfective выключал, it would sound like an ongoing, repeated, or background action, which does not fit this instant sequence idea very well.

So:

• выключил = completed action, one whole event
• very natural after едва, because едва ... как ... usually links two concrete events

Because стало тихо means it became quiet or it got quiet, while было тихо means it was quiet.

Here the sentence describes a change of state:

• first, the phone is turned off
• then the room changes from not quiet to quiet

That is why Russian uses стало from стать:

• стало тихо = it became quiet

Compare:

• В комнате было тихо. = The room was quiet.
• В комнате стало тихо. = The room became quiet.

So стало is the natural choice when something changes.

This is an impersonal construction.

In Russian, expressions like стало тихо, стало холодно, стало темно, стало ясно often use neuter singular past tense because there is no explicit subject.

Russian often says things like:

• Стало холодно. = It became cold.
• Стало поздно. = It became late.
• В комнате стало тихо. = It became quiet in the room.

English uses a dummy subject it, but Russian usually does not need one. The neuter singular form is standard in these impersonal statements.

Because in this structure Russian uses a predicative word like тихо, not a normal adjective agreeing with a noun.

Here тихо means quiet in the sense of it is quiet / it became quiet, not a quiet room.

Compare:

• тихая комната = a quiet room
  
  • adjective, agrees with комната
• в комнате тихо = it is quiet in the room
  
  • predicative form
• в комнате стало тихо = it became quiet in the room

So тихо does not change for gender or number here.

Because в комнате means in the room, and after в to express location, Russian uses the prepositional case.

• комната = room
• в комнате = in the room

This tells us where it became quiet.

Compare:

• в комнате = in the room
• в комнату = into the room

So in this sentence, location is meant, not direction.

Most directly, выключил телефон means turned off the phone.

However, depending on context, English might sometimes prefer slightly different translations:

• turned off the phone
• switched off the phone
• powered off the phone

It usually does not mean hung up. For hung up, Russian more naturally uses verbs like:

• повесил трубку = hung up the receiver
• закончил разговор = ended the conversation

So if the meaning shown to the learner is about turning off the device, выключил телефон fits that well.

Because this is a complex sentence with two clauses:

1. Едва я выключил телефон
2. как в комнате стало тихо

Russian normally separates such clauses with a comma.

The pattern едва ..., как ... strongly calls for this punctuation, just as English would separate clauses in a sentence like:

• Hardly had I turned off the phone, when it became quiet in the room.

So the comma is standard and necessary here.

Yes, Russian word order is flexible, but the original order is very natural.

The basic sentence:

Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

sounds neutral and clear.

You may also see variations such as:

• Едва я выключил телефон, как стало тихо в комнате.
• Едва выключил я телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

These are grammatically possible, but they may sound:

• more literary
• more emphatic
• less neutral in everyday speech

For learners, the original order is the safest model.

Yes, but it can sound a bit more literary or polished than some simpler alternatives.

Very common alternatives are:

• Как только я выключил телефон, в комнате стало тихо.
• Только я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

These also mean that one thing happened immediately after another.

Roughly speaking:

• едва ... как ... = a bit more bookish or expressive
• как только ... = very common and neutral
• только ... как ... = also common in narrative style

So the original sentence is perfectly normal, but learners should know there are more conversational equivalents.

Yes, it is grammatical, but the meaning changes slightly.

• Когда я выключил телефон, в комнате стало тихо = When I turned off the phone, it became quiet in the room
• Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо = Hardly had I turned off the phone when it became quiet in the room

The version with когда simply places one event in time.
The version with едва ... как ... emphasizes that the second event followed almost immediately.

So когда is possible, but less vivid and less specific.

Russian often omits subject pronouns when the verb ending already makes the subject clear. But in the past tense, the verb form alone may not always make the person obvious.

Here:

• выключил tells us masculine singular past
• but it does not by itself mean specifically I rather than he

So я is helpful and natural.

Without я, the sentence:

• Едва выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо

would sound incomplete unless the subject were already very clear from context, and even then it would be much less neutral.

So including я is the normal choice.

Yes. The sentence is a good example of a narrative, event-linked structure that Russian uses to make a sequence feel immediate and vivid.

What gives it that effect?

• едва ... как ... = immediate succession
• выключил = completed event
• стало тихо = sudden change of atmosphere

So the sentence does not just say two facts. It presents them as a quick, almost cinematic transition:

• phone off
• instant silence

That is why it may feel slightly more expressive than a plain, neutral statement.