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Kaname Naito runs a YouTube channel that explains Japanese grammar in English for learners of Japanese.
His videos take the uses of んです (n desu) and いや (iya) that native speakers never think about and untangle them from the learner's side.
So we looked into what kind of teacher he is, which of his videos people watch and how he has built out his courses and books.
The numbers were measured by this site through the YouTube API on October 31, 2026. We did not watch the videos themselves; what follows is written from their titles and descriptions. Dates are Japan time.
What Kind of Teacher Is Kaname Naito?
According to the self-introduction on his site, as we read it on October 31, 2026, Kaname is “a Japanese teacher who teaches Japanese in English and Chinese.”
His focus, he writes, is on “how Japanese is spoken” rather than “how Japanese should be spoken,” which he notes is not how it is usually taught.
The basic format seems to be plenty of example sentences and dialogues, so that learners can pick things up intuitively. He also says he knows “how tricky and frustrating learning a language can be.”
The channel opened on November 12, 2022. Its YouTube channel description is a single line: “Teaching Japanese.”
As of October 31, 2026, the channel had 368,000 subscribers, about 14.84 million total views and 141 videos.
It seems fair to call that a lot of subscribers for so few videos. The median video runs about 10 minutes 40 seconds.
His Name in Kanji, and His Age?
On October 31, 2026, we checked his site, his Patreon page and the descriptions of all 141 videos as of that date. Neither how his name is written in kanji nor his age appeared in any of them.
The same goes for where he is from, his education and his marital status; we could not get that far. That may be a slight letdown.
What we did find is how he describes himself in video descriptions: “a native Japanese speaker” and “a Japanese father.” That is as far as it goes.
As of October 31, 2026, YouTube's country setting for the channel was Japan, but we could not confirm where he lives either.
The Most-Watched Video: How to Use n desu
His most-viewed video is “How to Use んです?” from March 21, 2023, which had more than 1 million views as of October 31, 2026.
According to the video description, Japanese people use んです “all the time, but explanations in course books are often quite lacking.”
So learners give up and get by on “good old です” (desu), the description goes on, which leaves their Japanese unnatural and can even lead to misunderstanding.
His second most-viewed video is also his oldest public one: a video on the rhythm of Japanese from November 22, 2022, with more than 960,000 views as of October 31, 2026.
The video description gives this example: “You say ‘grandpa’ but it sounds like ‘uncle.’” That is, you mean おじいさん and it comes out as おじさん. A common worry for learners, it seems.
A March 2023 video arguing that concentrating on the readings of kanji does little to help you read also had about 690,000 views as of October 31, 2026.
Disputing the Textbook's Iie
His third most-viewed video is “いいえ Is Lame” from January 20, 2024, with more than 720,000 views as of October 31, 2026.
The video description makes a clear claim. Textbooks teach いいえ (iie) for “no,” it says, but “in real life people rarely say” the word, using いや or いえ (ie) instead.
Six days later came a video titled “Kaname Got in Trouble for Teaching いや.”
According to its description, some textbooks and teachers say いや is impolite. Even so, Kaname's explanation is that “いや is usually polite enough when people casually talk to each other in polite form.”
On December 16, 2024, there was also a video with a very long title: “食べさせられたくなくなるようにしなければならなかったわけがないはずないんです.”
The phrase was made up on purpose, the description says, to show how Japanese lets you build long words by sticking pieces together. There seems to be some playfulness in between the serious explanations.
Not Being Understood, in the US and in China
One of the few places where you can read anything like a background is the description of “Stop Blaming Japanese People for Not Understanding You,” from August 29, 2026.
He writes that he has seen learners get angry at Japanese people for not following Japanese that they should be able to follow with a little effort.
And Kaname writes: “I understand that frustration. I experienced the same thing in the US when I was trying to speak English, and in China when I was trying to speak Chinese.”
The description does not say when he was in either country, or for how long.
Still, having been the one who was not understood in a foreign language may be where his view from the learner's side comes from.
Building His Own Courses and Reading Material
As of October 31, 2026, his own site offers paid and free courses, and many of his video descriptions point viewers there too.
He announced his beginner course, Kaname's Beginner Japanese Level 1, in a video on February 6, 2025, and its follow-up, Level 2, in a video on August 15 of the same year.
Both appear to be sold as a one-off purchase rather than by the month, with the option to pay in installments. As of October 31, 2026, Level 1 was $120 and Level 2 was $150.
Situational Japanese, announced on April 8, 2026, is a course built around 20 themes from everyday life in Japan. Its price as of October 31, 2026, was $80.
The list runs from the convenience store and the izakaya to the city office, the hospital, the bank and renting an apartment, so it seems to lean more toward daily life than travel.
The audio comes in two versions, natural and enunciated. That fits a teacher who puts “how Japanese is spoken” first.
Books followed in 2026. As listed on Amazon, Onsen Romance, for upper-intermediate and advanced learners, came out on June 24, and Genki Nabe, for beginners, on July 22.
Genki Nabe is the story of a young American who wakes up to find that sixty years have passed. On September 3, he also put out a video explaining the book's first chapter sentence by sentence.
According to his Patreon page, which we read on October 31, 2026, he writes a blog for patrons about Japanese culture and history, in Japanese with English translation.
Videos Out Walking with His Young Son
In 2026, a new kind of video also became more common: outings with his young son.
The description of a February video says: “When speaking to a child, I repeat words and phrases again and again, slowly and clearly. This is exactly how children learn.”
So the Japanese a parent and child use, “the kind of Japanese you almost never learn from textbooks” in the words of the same description, becomes the teaching material just as it is.
The father-and-son outings have kept coming: Otaru in Hokkaido in March, camping at Lake Shikotsu in July and Furano in October.
His posting has changed too. From July 4 to October 17, 2026, 11 videos went up at 8 p.m. on Saturdays, Japan time.
Grammar explanations, father-and-son trips, courses and books. He seems to be adding, little by little, more ways in for people learning Japanese.
