De que color or Que color?
Which is more correct: "de que color es esto'" or "que color es esto'"
(I apologize for not including accent marks; I haven't figured out how to type those on this forum.)
Thanks in advance!
¿De qué color es esto? is used to ask about the colour of an object ("esto").
¿Qué color es este? is used to ask for the name of a colour ("esto" sound a bit strange here).
If you point at an object, let's say a teddy bear, you ask "¿De qué color es esto? (or ¿De qué color es el peluche'), but not "¿Qué color es esto'", since you are holding an object, not a colour. If you have cards with colours, and you want him to tell you the name of the colour on a card, you can say both, since you can be referring both to the colour itself, or to the card, which happens to be monochromatic (one colour). If you have a single colour filling the screen of your monitor (let's say red), you can't say that your monitor is red only because it is showing red, so you can't say "¿De qué color es esto'"; here you must say "¿Qué color es este'", since you are displaying a colour, not a monitor.
"¿De qué color...'" refers to an object for which you want to know its colour, whereas "¿Qué color...'" you are just asking about names of colours regardless of where they are displayed.
Thank you for your response!
I'm trying to teach my son the colors in spanish. If I ask him what color his car or truck is, would I use "de que color...'" since I am asking him what color the object is, or would I use "que color...'" since I want him to name the colors'