Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
je n\'ai pas à faire d\'efforts
English translation:
Why (should I) bother...?
French term
Spain
My passion is your project
Native in: English 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, English
je n'ai pas à faire d'efforts
This sentence occurs in a frame featuring employee (who is trying to sneak through some personal expenses on their company expenses form) and manager (who suspects the employee's wrongdoing).
Manager: Remarque, je vais quand meme regarder car le mois dernier, j'ai eu des remarques de la compta qui a trouvé des dépenses non justifiées ...
Employee (thought bubble): S'ils revérifient de toute facon, **je n'ai pas à faire d'efforts**.
Not sure what the last part of the employee's thought bubble means.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can give.
Clare
Mar 31, 2012 21:06: Cetacea changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): SJLD, Tony M, Cetacea
When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.
How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:
An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)
A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).
Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.
When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.
* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.
Proposed translations
Germany
A way with words
Native in: English (Variants: British, UK, US) 
Works in: German to English, French to English, English
I might as well just put anything / why should I bother?
The employee is obviously annoyed with having spent time filling out the claim, and the boss is going to double check everything anyway. Why should he or she have bothered?
why should I make an effort/bust a gut (to do it properly)
I don't have to go out my way...
| agree |
Daryo
: sounds unfinished, but so is "je n'ai pas à faire d'efforts". But it for sure conveys the flat refusal of that person to do anything more than just the routine/the basic minimum in his work.
49 days
|
Austria
more than thirty years of experience
Native in: German
Works in: Greek to German, English to German, Greek to English, and 5 more.
why (should I) strain myself ? or exert myself ?
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 19 Min. (2012-03-31 19:46:32 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
since they are going to check anyway, why should I bother and exert myself.
| disagree |
Tony M
: Wouldn't really be very natural in this specific context in EN, where there is clearly no actual physical exertion involved.
1 min
|
even if they do re-check, I have nothing to worry about
| disagree |
Daryo
: «je n'ai pas à faire d'efforts pour remplir correctement mes dépenses, car de toute façon ils vont tout vérifier et corriger mes erreurs" is what he ment
48 days
|
I'm under no obligation to make any effort
is part of this exchange :
--- la compta a trouvé des dépenses non justifiée!
--- je n'ai pas à faire d'efforts [implied:pour remplir correctement mes dépenses, car de toute façon ils vont tout vérifier et corriger mes erreurs]"
Once you get the source text right, there’s no need to “chercher midi à quatorze heures”.
In this case there’s no need to check what’s around to get to the right translation.
Quite the opposite, you can cut it in two segments:
je n'ai pas à = I'm under no obligation +
faire d'efforts = make some effort.
Stick it together and make it sound better
“I'm under no obligation to make any effort”
I think that it's as simple as that.
Someone saying “I don’t have to do it that way, it’s more than you are entitled to ask me”, whatever it is he is asked to do.
Exactly same reply could’ve been given by an overweight patient told by his doctor to start going to a gym, and would be translated exactly the same, only the implied bit would be different (“to keep myself in good health”)
Or by someone asked to mark a paper by a student with a horrible handwriting. (“to try to understand these hieroglyphs”)
“Why should I bother” would be more the translation to “pourquoi je me casserai la tête"
Something went wrong...