У кімнаті нуль стільців.

In Ukrainian, the present-tense verb to be is usually omitted. So instead of saying something literally like There are zero chairs in the room, Ukrainian often just says:

У кімнаті нуль стільців.

This is completely normal. The idea of there is / there are is understood from context.

Because after у / в when it means in, Ukrainian uses the locative case.

The noun кімната means room, but in the locative singular it becomes кімнаті.

So:

• кімната = room
• у кімнаті = in the room

Yes. У and в are often interchangeable and both can mean in.

Ukrainian chooses between them very often for ease of pronunciation and flow. This is called euphony. So both of these are possible:

• У кімнаті нуль стільців.
• В кімнаті нуль стільців.

The meaning is the same.

Because after нуль (zero), Ukrainian uses the genitive plural.

The basic form is:

• стілець = chair

But after нуль, you need:

• стільців = of chairs

So:

• нуль стільців = zero chairs

This is similar to how many numerals affect the form of the noun in Ukrainian.

Yes, in normal usage нуль takes the genitive plural of the noun.

Examples:

• нуль людей = zero people
• нуль машин = zero cars
• нуль стільців = zero chairs

So if you use нуль, expect the following noun to be in the genitive plural.

This happens because Ukrainian nouns often change both their ending and sometimes part of the stem when they are declined.

Here the forms are:

• стілець = chair
• стільців = of chairs

The change looks big from an English-speaking perspective, but it is a normal part of Ukrainian noun inflection. You do not always get a simple ending added to the dictionary form; sometimes the stem changes too.

So this is something to learn as part of the noun’s pattern:

• singular nominative: стілець
• plural nominative: стільці
• genitive plural: стільців

It is grammatical and understandable, but in everyday speech Ukrainians often prefer a sentence with немає:

• У кімнаті немає стільців. = There are no chairs in the room.

That version is often more natural in ordinary conversation when you simply mean there are no chairs.

Using нуль стільців can sound a bit more:

• counting-based
• emphatic
• factual or statistical

So both work, but немає стільців is often the more usual everyday choice.

No, Ukrainian word order is fairly flexible.

У кімнаті нуль стільців is a natural neutral order. It starts with the location and then gives the information about what is there.

You could change the order, but the emphasis would shift. For example:

• Нуль стільців у кімнаті puts more stress on zero chairs
• Стільців у кімнаті нуль sounds more emphatic or contrastive

So the original sentence is a good standard version.

Yes. Нема is a common shorter spoken form of немає.

So these both mean the same thing:

• У кімнаті немає стільців.
• У кімнаті нема стільців.

The shorter form is very common in speech and informal language.