# Recommendation for separating bilingual contents

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 21, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658 "2008-07-21T17:03:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tadatoshi)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658/1 "2008-07-21T17:03:40Z")

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Hi,

Is there any recommended way to separate the contents for different  
languages e.g. English and French?  
Especially, when the content is added by the user separately in  
English and French for the same one topic, how do you recommend to  
structure models and store them in database?  
I want to keep the search for the content simple also.

I have been doing it in my own way. But I think it’s time to follow  
the best practices if there is any.

Thank you.

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**Author:** ![tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tadatoshi)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658/2 "2008-07-21T21:38:21Z")

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To be able to help you should be more specific about what the content  
is and how it is differ in different languages.

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**Author:** ![tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tadatoshi)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658/3 "2008-07-21T21:58:20Z")

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Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

The content is written by administration users both in English and  
French.  
So they are not direct translation from each other.  
It is associated with an effective date.

I don’t want to duplicate the effective date for English content and  
French content because it is identical.  
But I don’t want to use joins much because I don’t want to deal with a  
problem with search and tagging capability.

So I would like to know if there are best practices in this matter.

Thank you.  
Tadatoshi

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tadatoshi)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658/4 "2008-07-22T12:16:37Z")

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Best practices are guidelines to adequate solutions and as such can  
vary from one particular issue to another.  
I’m not familiar with any of them concerning the multilingual issues  
even I have build some multi language applications.  
My rule of thumb is to have as less as possible redundant informations  
that are not language dependent.  
In you case you can split content to two parts. One that is language  
dependent and the common one.  
If the content must be present even if there is non in selected  
language the two strategies can be applied: show content in default  
language or show the error message.

You can look at some rails plug-ins like globalite ([http://github.com/](http://github.com/)  
mattetti/globalite/tree/master) or Gloc ([http://rubyforge.org/projects/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/)  
gloc/) and combine it with your own solution.

The internationalization plug-ins list can be find at  
[http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/category/8](http://agilewebdevelopment.com/plugins/category/8)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tadatoshi](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tadatoshi)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/recommendation-for-separating-bilingual-contents/143658/5 "2008-07-22T23:56:51Z")

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Thank you, Dejan,

I agree with your rule of thumb.  
I will keep that in mind.

Thank you for your advice.

Sincerely,  
Tadatoshi