haha wa, nori o komakaku kitte, udon ni iremashita.

My mother cut the seaweed into small pieces and put it in the udon.

Breakdown of haha wa, nori o komakaku kitte, udon ni iremashita.

• は: topic particle
• を: direct object particle
• 母はは: mother
• に: location particle

Questions & Answers about haha wa, nori o komakaku kitte, udon ni iremashita.

Why is 母 followed by は instead of が?

は marks 母 as the topic of the sentence: as for mother, this is what she did.

In this sentence, the speaker is not mainly identifying who did the action; they are telling what the already-known topic, mother, did. So 母は sounds very natural.

If you used 母が, it would put more focus on mother as the one who did it, often with a nuance like it was mother who... or in a context where the subject is being newly introduced or contrasted.

So here:

• 母は = speaking about mother as the topic
• 母が = focusing on mother as the subject

Why does 海苔 take を?

を marks the direct object of the verb.

Here, the thing being cut is 海苔, so:

• 海苔を切って = cut the seaweed

Even though the sentence later continues to another verb, 海苔 is still the object of 切って.

What does 細かく do here, and why does it end in -く?