Higher education and training

The list for the years after school. In the middle of it is redoubler, and the English verb built from the same parts means very nearly the opposite thing about the same student. Il a redoublé sa seconde says he repeated the year — he did not pass, and he is sitting through it again. English « to redouble » only ever means to increase: you redouble your efforts, and the phrase is a compliment. Both come from doubler, to double, and each language chose a different thing to double — French the year, English the effort. The English for the French sense is « to repeat a year » or « to be kept down »; the noun is le redoublement, which is on this list too, and un redoublant is the student doing it. So the most sympathetic-sounding word here is the one that reports a failure.