Originally Posted by Оля
I've had a very long and wearisome dispute with some fans of the Russian movie "Kin Dza Dza" about a subtitle for one of its episodes. The dispute concerns the Russian word двоечник which does not have a precise correcpondence in English. Двоечник in Russian means "poor student", "student who earns poor grades", and nothing else and nothing more.
The guys are insisting on using the English word 'underachiever' for that.
As I understand from another native's very careful explanation, underachiever is someone who's not operating at his level being capable of more. For example, a student who earns A when he can earn A+. So I think the word is not fine for translating the Russian 'двоечник'.
I'm going to ask for your help in this question, could you (natives, please) express your opinion?