English Translation
He must have lost his marbles.
Verstand = understanding
It’s true that “Verstand” is related to the verb “verstanden”, which means “to understand”, but when used as a noun like this, it’s more commonly used to mean “mind”:
Hast du den Verstand verloren? = Have you lost your mind?
Er hat einen analytischen Verstand = He has an analytical mind.
For “understanding”, I would go with “Verständnis” instead of “Verstand”:
Ich habe ein ausgezeichnetes Verständnis dafür = I have an excellent understanding of it.
It’s unfortunate that Clozemaster often prefers a colourful or silly translation over a literal one. “He must have lost his marbles” is a bit of a fanciful translation compared to the German sentence.
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Yes, the change of language registry is incorrect. I would suggest:
to have lost one’s marbles = nicht mehr alle Tassen im Schrank haben
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@Lernen_und_Fahren You are mostly correct, but there’s one thing to watch out for:
There’s a difference between “Verständnis davon” and “Verständnis dafür”.
In your example, with the meaning “to have a good grasp”, I would rather say “Ich habe ein ausgezeichnetes Verständnis davon”. The “davon” matches the english “of it” pretty nicely.
“Verständnis dafür haben”, or most of the time in the negative “kein Verständnis dafür haben”, means that you can’t sympathise. It’s basically like “I can’t understand what’s going on in their brain”. Here, the “dafür” matches the english “for”.
Example:
Ich habe kein Verständnis dafür, wenn jemand zwei Parkplätze belegt.
I have no sympathy for someone taking up two parking spaces.
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