"What is the benefit?"

Translation: Ποιο είναι το όφελος;

[samania21]

I am still having a lot of trouble deciding when to use "τι" versus "ποιο" in a what...? question. I understand when there is a limited set of options to choose from, you should use ποιο, but for questions like this one I don't understand why you should use ποιο instead of τι. Can anyone explain if there are rules for this? Thanks!

[jeanprendiville]

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I will answer you, in the meantime I received this answer which helped me. Usually with " ποιος" you ask for the name of something, a subject, a brand, a title or one of the options offered. With "τι" you ask for a definition/ explanation/ attribute of something;
"Ποιο είναι το σχολείο σου" what is the name of your school.
"Τι είναι το σχολείο σου" Is it big, good, new. Hope this helps.

[samania21]

Wow, very helpful, thank you!

[troll1995]

Perfectly right! ;)

[Vivliothykarios]

... Whereas, my impression is that τι is used where "what" refers to the whole following phrase, while ποιος/ποια/ποιο, etc., is really pinned to the following noun (as in this example).

[k_01]

think ike that: τί=what, ποιο=which meaning a neuter gender

[samania21]

Hmm, that is how I was thinking of it so far but it has led me to a lot of wrong answers! In general, I would say "What is the benefit," not "Which is the benefit?" in English, but apparently you are supposed to say Ποιο είναι το όφελος; in Greek.

[kmag04]

I was looking for "Ophelia" in mythology as a memory tool and learned that the name was actually created by a 15th century poet for a "helpful" character in a poem that he wanted to have a Greek sounding name (which was later popularized by Shakespeare's "Hamlet"). Not the story I expected but interesting anyway!

[Sean618907]

To me all the comments lead to the conclusion that τι would be better in this case - but apparently it is not. Remaining confused.

[D_..]

Does my comment here https://www.duolingo.com/comment/21731958 help?

[Daimon-Dave]

So, όφελος is a neuter word, because of the neuter article (το) that precedes it, ¿right?

I was about to ask for another examples, but I just google it and found this: https://blogs.transparent.com/greek/greek-neuter-nouns-ending-in-%CE%BF%CF%82/