"which" or "what" or "when"?

[soso]

"which" or "what" or "when"?

https://thegrammarexchange.infopop.cc/topic/which-or-what-or-when

I know "which" is used when you have a limited group of things from which to choose 

and "what" is used when you have unlimited number of things to choose from.

which는 숫자가 제한된 특정한 대상 중의 하나를, what는 불특정 다수 중의 하나를 지칭할 때 씀

Examples:
Which season do you like best? (there are four seasons)
What sport do you enjoy most? ( there are a large number of sports)
Then, which of the following sentence is better?
(1) Which is your birth month?
(2) What is your birth month?
(3) When is your birth month?

According to the above mentioned rule, the correct sentence should be (1), because there only 12 months. What about (3)?



With a pronoun, not an adjective, with "be," you would use "what":

be 동사가 사용된 경우에는 what을 의문사로 쓴다

Your birth month is May. 에서 May를 모른다 치면 what으로 대체하여 의문문으로 만들기에

What is your birth month?로 되므로 When is your birth month?로 할 수 없는데

한글로는 언제냐고 물으므로 when이 맞을 듯 하나 영어는 아니다

(pronoun)
What is your birth month?
What is the month you were born in?

(adjective)
What month were you born in?
OR
Which month were you born in?

In addition, with units of the calendar, one tends to use "what":

What's the date today? 몇일이냐?
What day is it?              무슨 요일이냐?
What month is it?          몇 월이냐?

날짜, 요일, 월/달을 물어볼 때 Which가 아니고  What을 씀
_______

We wouldn't say, "When is your birth month?" 

We'd say, of course, "When were you born?" and then, "What is your birth month?"


It's interesting about "what / which" season. You would think that since there are only four, "which" would be used more.

Yet, the New York Times Archives has only 13 examples of "which season" in contrast to 39 of "what season."

Google has 273,000 of "which season" and 377,000 of "what season."

The examples are of "which" and "what" as pronouns and as adjectives.

Either "which season" or "what season" would be perfectly correct.



Right.

Yes. "When is your birthday" is more like asking "when" in a schedule. 

Maybe there is a connection with "when can we celebrate your birthday?"

When is your birthday celebrated?