У місті дев’ять машин.

Here у means in.

Ukrainian often alternates у and в to make pronunciation smoother. They are usually just two sound-based variants of the same preposition. So:

• у місті
• в місті

both mean in the city, but у місті is very natural here.

Because after у/в meaning in, Ukrainian uses the locative case.

The dictionary form is місто = city.
But in in the city, it becomes:

• місто → у місті

So місті is the locative singular form.

Here it means in the city.

A very important difference is:

• у місті = in the city → location, so locative
• у місто = into the city / to the city → motion toward, so accusative

So the ending tells you whether it is location or movement.

In Ukrainian, the present-tense verb to be is often omitted.

So a sentence like:

• У місті дев’ять машин.

naturally means:

• There are nine cars in the city.

You can also say:

• У місті є дев’ять машин.

That version is also correct and makes the idea of existence a little more explicit.

Because after five and higher numbers, Ukrainian normally uses the genitive plural of the noun.

So:

• дев’ять машин = nine cars

The base form is:

• машина = car

Its genitive plural is:

• машин

This is a very common pattern:

• дві машини = two cars
• три машини = three cars
• чотири машини = four cars
• п’ять машин = five cars
• дев’ять машин = nine cars

Here дев’ять is in the nominative form.

In this sentence, дев’ять машин functions as the quantity phrase meaning nine cars. The numeral is in its basic form, and it governs the noun машин in the genitive plural.

If the whole phrase had to change case, the numeral would change too. For example:

• без дев’яти машин = without nine cars
• до дев’яти машин = up to nine cars

Yes. Ukrainian word order is fairly flexible.

This sentence starts with the location:

• У місті дев’ять машин.

That sounds natural if you want to set the scene first: in the city...

You could also hear:

• Дев’ять машин у місті.
• У місті є дев’ять машин.

These versions are all possible, but the emphasis may shift slightly depending on context.

A rough pronunciation is DEH-vyat’.

The apostrophe in дев’ять is important. It shows that the я begins a separate ya sound, rather than simply softening the previous consonant.

So в’я is pronounced roughly like vya.

Also, the final ть is soft.

The usual stresses are:

• у мі́сті
• де́в’ять
• маши́н

So the whole sentence is pronounced roughly as:

• у MEE-stee DEH-vyat’ ma-SHYN

The preposition у is unstressed.

It can mean both, depending on context.

• машина can mean car in everyday speech.
• It can also mean machine in a broader sense.

In this sentence, the intended meaning is cars. Context usually makes that clear.