Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

Barely had I turned off the phone when the room became quiet.

Breakdown of Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

• я: I
• в: in
• телефон: the phone
• комната: the room

Questions & Answers about Едва я выключил телефон, как в комнате стало тихо.

What does едва ... как mean in this sentence?

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.

Why is как used after the comma?

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.