In my opinion, you give an answer to a question. You can also give a reply or response to a question, but I think answer is more common. Example: A: "Do you want to see a movie?" B: "Yes." "Yes" is B's answer to A's question. You could also call it B's reply or B's response. Also, there is the phrase "answer the phone," meaning to pick up the phone when it rings. This is a set phrase and you can't replace "answer" with reply or respond. I think you can give a reply or response to a statement or a message, but not an answer. Example: A: "Let's see Star Wars." B: "Yes, that sounds good." "Yes, that sounds good" is B's reply/response to A's statement. But you can't call it B's answer. Also, you can give a reply or response to a message. Example: A sends an email to B. B sends an email to A, talking about A's email. B's email is a reply or response to A's email. We would say, "B replied to A's email," or "B responded to A's email." I hope that this helps! And I hope my words were simple enough. :)

Reply and answer can also be verbs (and they function differently!), but response is always a noun. The verb form is "to respond". Response and reply come from a Latin origin, so their use is formal and academic. You'd see these in business correspondence. Answer is from Old English, so there's a "personal" sense to this word. Also... if you say "explain me" in English, we understand "me" as "меня". This is how English word-order works. Native English speakers use "explain to me" or "explain [the differences] to me".

A few examples........ response- Please give me a response by Thursday! reply- What is your reply? answer- What is your answer? "reply" and "answer" are synonyms so they are the same! "response" can also be used as reply and answer but can also mean an action like....His response was generous!