It's a strange question. If you know that the object is a pen, why are you asking what it is? Word order is different in Japanese sentences than in English sentences, so keeping the word order the same does not necessarily give you a better translation. In this case, "... that pen is what?" seems like a very unnatural sentence in English, but I'm not sure what information either question is asking for.
December 30, 2015 at 3:26pm