"There was no response to my question."

Vertaling: Er was geen reactie op mijn vraag.

[S.v.d.Veer]

Waarom is antwoord in deze zin fout?

[Jelle347508]

Niemand reageerde op mijn vraag, had ik bedacht

[stephenpeckhover]

Could "aan" be used for "to"?

[El2theK]

No, that wouldn't work here.

[MentalPinball]

Hi Stephen,

As far as my undestanding goes, aan is used to mean to before a person (like the person to whom you're asking/sending something -in grammatical terms, that would be the Indirect Object) when it's placed after the Direct Object (the thing being asked/said/sent) or when a name is used instead of an Object Pronoun. In the last case, if the IO is preceding the DO, aan can be included or not.

Example: ik vraag iets aan hem

Ik vraag hem iets

Ik vraag iets aan Jan.

Ik vraag Jan iets.

Ik vraag aan Jan iets.

On the other hand, op is used to mean 'to' when used to refer to the thing you asked/said (in Functional Grammar, this is called the verbiage). Remember that op normally means on.

Example:

Jan had geen antwoord op mijn vraag.

Marx maakte opmerkingen op de ideën van Smith en Ricardo. (In this last case, over works much better)

[cmustille]

dankjewel. Prepositions are the most difficult area for me to understand