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Here in Germany I can call someone an idiot with included "grading": I can load it with surplus despise ("Sie Vollpfosten!"), or I can make it almost tender using dialect ("Du Döspaddel!"). I once made the error of calling someone a "baka" on the Internet, I thought the whole context made it obvious the second variant was meant. Fail.

I would be very surprised if Japanese doesn't have the same possibilities as German here. So, how could you vary the baka making the sense obvious even outside of face-to-face communication? (I guess if a friend says it to another with a big grin on a face, it can't be misunderstood - or are Japanese customs of interaction totally different?)

Note there are even more German connotations of the "mentally challenged": the "Tor"/naive (think Perceval) and the "Narr"/jester (think Nasreddin). Google Translate, which I never trust in such a case, gives "naibu" for the former (no translation at all) and "baka" (sic!) for the latter. (And I if I enter it in English, "dokeshi". Which rather seems to be a clown. But that's the "institutionalized" version - Nasreddin rather would be a "Schelm" - "fusei"?)

You see, a lot of fine distinctions I can handle without problem in my mother tongue, but already not even in English. How would you make these distinctions in Japanese?

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    This is cultural. Half my family is German: they have a penchant for pissing off the American half with expressions that just come across as rude or passive aggressive. The American half mocks the German half for their perceived arrogant uptightness over titles and forms of address. I've lived across the States from East to West, and in between. There is no tender way to call someone stupid, you're still just insulting them. (Though, there may be isolated circles where you can get away with it.) But this seems like a dangerous way to speak in a culture as different as Japan is.
    – A.Ellett
    Commented Aug 23, 2021 at 16:23

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First things first - 99% of the time, the word "バカ" written on BBS is simply slander and has little to no joking meaning. Overseas people use "baka" lightly (I think it's because of baka mitai, or some animation), but as a Japanese person, I don't have many opportunities to slander people... except for when I was a student.

As far as I know, there are words to describe the strength of stupidity, such as 大馬鹿 and 小馬鹿. However, I don't think these are often used to emphasize stupidity (or vice versa). This is because in most cases, the word "馬鹿" is simply written, and the words "大馬鹿" and "小馬鹿" are rarely used. In most cases, the word "馬鹿" is enough, and there are not many opportunities to slander people, as I said above.

By the way, there are other words such as "アホ(stupid)" "ボケ(fool)" and "マヌケ(dumbass)"(all of those translation is just my opinion based. Oh, and バカ is idiot for me.); but for some reason, the way they are perceived seems to change depending on the region.

For example, people in the Kansai area, especially in Osaka, are very sensitive to being called "バカ", but not so sensitive to being called "アホ" "ボケ" or "マヌケ". One reason I can think of is that the comedians tend to use words like "アホ" "ボケ" or "マヌケ" a lot, but I have not seen many comedians saying "バカ". In the Kansai area, there are a lot of comedians and a lot of programs specializing in comedy, so perhaps people don't pay much attention to words they have been exposed to since childhood.

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