Hi all,

I will develope an application that have data dictionaries translated to some languages.

Example of a non-localized table "Thing": thing_id, code, hidden, shortname, longname
Target: shortname and longname must be represented in many languages

My variants of the solution:

Model variant 1 (one table with many columns):
"Thing" table: thing_id, code, hidden, shortname_en, longname_en, shortname_de, longname_de, shortname_ru, longname_ru

Model variant 2 (two tables with default language in the parent table):
"Thing" table in english: thing_id, code, hidden, shortname, longname
"Thing_Loca" tabl: thing_id, locale, shortname, longname

Model variant 3 (two tables with language data in the child table):
"Thing" table: thing_id, code, hidden
"Thing_Loca" tabl: thing_id, locale, shortname, longname


My questions:
1) Do you know about any other models?
2) Which model would you prefer?
3) Do you konw any internet resources about this problem?

Thanks for your answers
Igor

I think here you need to look at how easy it would be to add another language version to your system. Variant 1 would entail adding more fields to your table. Variants 2 & 3 require no structural changes to the database, just the additional of data. Personally I would favour Variant 3.

Also you might want to consider adding another table for locale info, which you foreign key link to in your thing_loca table. Depends on whether you want further info on the language in question, eg. dialects, versions of a language (UK english, US english).