However, a change of reference to a more distant version of a particular pronoun, determiner etc depends on the speaker's or writer's own distance to the report. For example, consider Mr Gong saying to his wife "We cannot afford to buy a flat." If Mrs Gong then reports this to a friend, she might say My husband said that we cannot afford to buy a flat. In other words, since Mrs Gong is part of the 'we' referred to, the pronoun cannot be changed to they. Similarly, if the speaker reporting Miss Lee saying "The students don't like this classroom." is standing in the classroom in question, then the reference remains to this classroom, and could not be changed to the distant that classroom. 

Time & place

Information about time and place is also commonly changed from near to distant in indirect speech:

	time
		Inspector Fu said, "We'll arrest the robber tomorrow." [direct speech] Inspector Fu said that they would arrest the robber the next day. [indirect speech]
	place
		Mr Wing said, "I'll be waiting for you here." [direct speech] Mr Wing said that he would be waiting for them there. [indirect speech]

The most common adverbs likely to be changed to distant in indirect speech are listed in the table below:

However, as in the cases of personal, possessive and demonstrative reference, a change to a more distant version depends on the speaker's or writer's distance to the report. Students should not be encouraged to carry out exercises in which they are asked to make such changes mechanically, ie without giving consideration to the meanings involved. For example, if Bozo asks Ricky "Did you watch the movie on TV last night?" and Ricky reports this later that same day, he would probably say, Bozo asked me if I had watched the movie on TV last night, ie the reference to the time of the event cannot be changed from last night to the night before. However, if Ricky were to report this on the following day, then he would say, Bozo asked me if I had watched the movie on TV the night before.