Translation guide
How to express 'speed up' in Japanese, covering intransitive and transitive uses, from natural everyday phrases to formal and technical terms.
The subject itself becomes faster, e.g., a car, work pace, or heart rate.
The most common and neutral way to say something becomes faster. Uses the adjective 速い (fast).
The car suddenly sped up.
The pace of work sped up.
Intransitive verb meaning 'to accelerate'. Slightly more formal or technical than 速くなる, but still common.
The economic recovery is speeding up.
The car suddenly accelerated.
Loanword from English, used both intransitively and transitively. Common in business and casual contexts.
The work sped up.
Intransitive verb meaning 'to become earlier' or 'to be hastened'. Often used for schedules or events happening sooner than planned.
The departure was sped up (moved earlier).
A person or thing causes something else to become faster.
The most basic and versatile transitive expression. Literally 'make fast'.
He sped up the car.
Please speed up the tempo of the music.
Causative form of 加速する, meaning 'to make something accelerate'. More formal than 速くする.
Transitive verb meaning 'to hasten' or 'to advance' (a schedule, process). Often used for deadlines or events.
Causative of スピードアップする. Used in business or project contexts.
We need to speed up the project.
Focus on increasing the pace of an action, often with a sense of urgency.
General verb for 'to hurry'. Often used when there is a time constraint.
Literally 'raise the pace'. Common in sports, work, or any activity with a measurable pace.
Similar to ペースを上げる, but focuses on speed rather than pace. Used for vehicles, machines, or abstract processes.
I sped up the car.
速い (はやい) means 'fast' in terms of speed. 早い (はやい) means 'early' in terms of time. When talking about speeding up a schedule, use 早める. When talking about increasing velocity, use 速くする or 加速する.
The car is fast.
The morning is early.
スピードアップする is usually used for processes, work, or machines, not for telling a person to hurry up. Use 急ぐ or 急いで instead.
The government sped up the reforms.
会議の時間を早めた。
We sped up (moved up) the meeting time.
He hastened his own death.
He hurried through his work.
The runner sped up on the final lap.