haha ha, gyouza no azituke wo sukosi kaete, mae yori ninniku wo sukunaku simasita.

母は sets mother as the topic of the sentence: As for my mother, ...

Using は is very natural here because the sentence is just telling us what she did. It is not especially emphasizing that she (and not someone else) did it.

If you used 母が, it would sound more like you were identifying her as the person who did the action, with more focus on the subject.

Yes. In Japanese, when talking about your own family to someone else, words like 母 often mean my mother.

So 母は here naturally means my mother or my mom.

A learner may expect 私の母, but Japanese often leaves out 私の when it is obvious from context.

餃子の味付け literally means something like the seasoning/flavoring of the gyoza.

• 餃子 = gyoza / dumplings
• の = links nouns, like of
• 味付け = seasoning, flavoring, the way something is seasoned

So this part refers not to the gyoza themselves as objects, but to how the gyoza were seasoned.

Because 味付け is the direct object of 変えて.

The structure is:

餃子の味付けを変える
= to change the seasoning of the gyoza

So を marks the thing being changed.

少し means a little or slightly, and here it most naturally modifies 変えて:

味付けを少し変えて
= changing the seasoning a little

So the idea is that the mother did not completely remake the recipe; she adjusted it slightly.

The て-form connects actions.

Here:

味付けを少し変えて、前よりにんにくを少なくしました。

This means something like:

• She changed the seasoning a little, and
• made the garlic less than before.

The て-form often works like and, but the connection can also imply sequence: first one thing happened, then the next.

So 変えて links the first action to the second.

前より means than before.

• 前 = before / earlier
• より = than

So 前より sets up a comparison point:

前よりにんにくを少なくしました
= (She) used less garlic than before

In Japanese, より marks the standard of comparison.

Because 少ない is an i-adjective, and when an i-adjective is used before する to mean make something ..., it usually changes to its -く form:

• 少ない = few / little
• 少なくする = to make less / reduce

So:

にんにくを少なくしました
= made the garlic amount less
= used less garlic

This is a very common pattern:

• 大きい → 大きくする = make bigger
• 早い → 早くする = make earlier/faster
• 少ない → 少なくする = make less

Good question. There are two different patterns here:

1. にんにくが少ない
   = there is little garlic / the garlic is scarce

2. にんにくを少なくする
   = to make the amount of garlic less / to reduce the garlic

In this sentence, the mother is actively changing the recipe, so Japanese uses the transitive pattern:

にんにくを少なくしました
= she reduced the garlic

So を is used because garlic is the thing being reduced by someone’s action.

More or less, yes.

Very literally, it is made (it) fewer/less. In natural English, we usually say:

• used less garlic
• reduced the garlic
• cut down on the garlic

So the Japanese expression is a very normal way to talk about adjusting the amount of something in food.

Yes. The subject is still mother.

Japanese often states the topic or subject once and then leaves it understood for the rest of the sentence. So after 母は, both actions are understood to be done by the mother:

• 変えて = she changed
• しました = she made/reduced

Japanese avoids repeating the subject when it is already clear.

Japanese word order is more flexible than English, but this order is very natural.

The sentence basically goes:

1. topic: 母は
2. object of first action: 餃子の味付けを
3. manner/degree: 少し
4. first action: 変えて
5. comparison: 前より
6. object of second action: にんにくを
7. result/change: 少なくしました

A lot of these pieces can move somewhat, but the given order sounds smooth and easy to process.

For example, 前より could appear in a slightly different place, but the original sentence is standard and natural.

味 means taste or flavor in a broad sense.

味付け is more specifically seasoning or the act/result of adding flavor. It often refers to how food has been seasoned with salt, soy sauce, spices, garlic, and so on.

So in this sentence, 味付け is a better fit than 味 because the mother is adjusting the recipe, not just describing the flavor in an abstract way.

Yes, definitely.

The sentence first says the mother changed the seasoning a little, and then more specifically explains one way she did that: she used less garlic than before.

So the second part can be understood as a concrete example of how the seasoning was changed.

In English, this relationship is often expressed as:

She changed the seasoning of the gyoza a little, using less garlic than before.