"The German airplane is flying over the Italian capital."
Translation:Niemiecki samolot leci nad włoską stolicą.
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I feel that when talking about the physical position, „nad” is more favored than „ponad”, but I wouldn't necessarily call it wrong (though it could fit better with „lata”). I see „ponad” more often when talking about numbers, as in „over 20%” for example.
Added 'ponad', but I don't think we teach it. After all, the course teaches basics ;)
Italian shoes - włoskie buty
Italian pasta - makaron włoski
Italian capital - stolica Włoch
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Which way does it go? the adjective for permanent state before or after the noun and the non permanent state before or after? Blue suede shoes or shoes of blue suede Italian capital or capital of Italy. Is that a real thing?
You put the adjective after the noun if it's some kind of a category. For example "liczby całkowite" are integers - a category of numbers in maths. There's one Italian capital, it's not a category of capitals.
You can read more about it here: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/21465404
Why is it not "Niemiecki samolot leci nad włoską stolicę"? Isn't 'nad' taking accusative when it denotes movement?
It depends. "nad włoską stolicę" would imply it's not there yet and is heading there. "nad włoską stolicą" means it's currently there.
Given the word order, I'd say that it's too different, although the difference may be subtle. In the original sentence, "the German airplane" is the subject, the sentence starts with mentioning its existence and then it says what the airplane is doing. In your sentence, which is perfectly correct on its own, its position at the end means that it's the new piece of information, therefore it's rather "a German airplane".
Similarly to the "Polish tradition" - "stolica włoska" sounds strange to my ear.
Is there some kind of rule for that? In another exercice I've got wrong answer because I wrote "... [country] stolica", and in this one I also got wrong anwer because I wrote "... stolica [country]"
If I change Niemiecki to Niemiecka in google translate it says the sentence changes from flies over to 'is' flying over. Would you clarify this for me? Thanks in advance.
Short answer: Google Translate is wrong.
Slightly longer answer: GT is not a translator where every grammatical rule was coded by hand. Instead, it's an algorithm that analyses existing translation in order to "figure out" what to do. Thus, changing one word may sometimes in some inexplicable way significantly change the output. GT is useful to understand the gist of something written in another language, not to provide all the accurate details.
Here the given translation is:
Niemiecki samolot leci nad włoską stolicą.
But in the exercise the correct translation shown is:
Niemiecki samolot leci nad stolicą Włoch.
What's the difference between “nad włoską stolicą” and “nad stolicą Włoch”? (Also notice the capitalisation in Włoch)
I figure nad włoską stolicą means over the Italian capital, and nad stolicą Włoch means over the capital of Italy. Is this right?
Yes, that's it. Also notice how the capitalisation rules differ from English. Names of countries and its inhabitants are capitalized, but adjectives derived from it are not.