this-that

[Marionetta]

Hello,

I have encountered following problem:

in our course books, students are instructed to answer the questions

What´s this? What are these?

like this:

It´s a credit card. They are coins.

1st question: it feels more natural (to me) to answer This is a credit card. and These are coins. is it correct or not?

2nd question: what about questions with that and those?
What is that? It´s a car. /That is a car.
What are those? They are windows. /Those are windows.

which is correct /more correct here?

thank you very much for your help.

[E2e4]

[Mister Micawber]

E2 has the right idea. To the question 'What's this?', the answer could easily be 'It's a cellphone', 'That's a cellphone', or 'This's a cellphone' depending on where the item is and on the speaker's habit... and the most natural answer would be simply 'A cellphone'. Your coursebook is unnecessarily prescriptive, Marionetta.
_________________
Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's