“敷衍”指待人不真诚或做事不认真，只在表面上应付。如果要用英语来表达“敷衍”这个词，大家反应是什么？“the wrong attitude”或者“lack of serious attitude”?
关于这个表达最简单的说法是：perfunctory /pəˈfʌŋk.tər.i/，作为形容词，有“敷衍的；例行公事般的；潦草的”等含义。
e.g. They only made a perfunctory effort.  他们只是敷衍了事。
还有一个表达是：indifferent /ɪnˈdɪfrənt/，作为形容词它除了有“漠不关心；不感兴趣”这一层意思，还可以表示“not very good”。
e.g.Despite spending 5 hours, the quality of the essay she wrote is indifferent. 尽管她花了5个小时来写这篇文章，但文章质量不是很好。
还有一个更形象生动的表达是：pay lip service，顾名思义，这个短语的意思是“嘴上功夫；口头上支持，根本没有实际行动”。英文释义：to say that you agree with something but do nothing to support it.
e.g.She claims to be in favour of training, but so far she's only paid lip service to the idea. 她声称对培训持赞成态度，但到目前为止她的赞成还仅仅停留在口头上。
中文里有一个表达叫做“走过场”，也有“敷衍”之意，在英文中可以说成“go through the motions”，英文释义为“to do something without thinking it is very important or having much interest in it.” 可以理解为“假装做做，装装样子”。
e.g. I don't want to do this, but I think I'd better go through the motions. 我不想做这件事，但我认为还是装装样子比较好。