Learn English – Asking a question “to”, “from”, or “of”

questions

I was just talking with someone about the rule regarding "asking a question to/from/of".
I am natively Dutch, and to me, "to" makes the most sense intuitively, since in Dutch grammar you pose a question, you don't ask it. I'm aware however that "to" is incorrect in English.

The person I was talking to said that the correct rule is "from". This seems quirky to me however. If you "ask X from someone", it means that you ask them to give you an X. So to me, whereas "asking an answer from" makes sense, "asking a question from" doesn't, unless you're asking for a question.

I've seen a source on the internet that says "of" is the correct rule. But this sounds odd to both of us. "asking a question of X" sounds like you have a question about X.

So, which is the correct one, and why? Is my reasoning about "from" correct?

Best Answer

If you have to use a preposition with ask a question, then of your choices, certainly it has to be of.

The thing is that normally, we wouldn’t use a preposition at all to name the person we’re posing the question to. Instead, we’d just use an indirect object, which must fall between the verb and the direct object:

  • I’ll ask them three questions. [indirect object]
  • I’ll ask three questions of them. [prepositional object]

Or like this:

  • He asked them my name. [indirect object]
  • He asked my name of them. [prepositional object, but somewhat stilted]

But remember, you also ask someone for something, which makes it more of a request instead of just questioning them:

  • He asked them for my phone number.
  • He requested my phone number from them.
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