title: Rails 3 I18n for database tables
body: <p>I'm looking for some tips and advice for the best practices for using internationalization.  I've search around, but I haven't really been satisfied with what I read.  Most of the articles I've read focus on using yml files for I18n which will not work in my situation.</p>
  
  <p>I currently have several database tables with text in English.  Some of these tables have text fields that are a few sentences long and some are 6+ paragraphs of text.  I would like to also have these fields in Spanish.</p>
  
  <p>The approach I'm currently considering is to use the I18n-active record gem and have 1 translations table that the app will use for all the translations in the app</p>
  
  <pre><code> class CreateTranslations &lt; ActiveRecord::Migration
      def self.up
        create_table :translations do |t|
          t.string :locale
          t.string :key
          t.text   :value
          t.text   :interpolations
          t.boolean :is_proc, :default =&gt; false
  
          t.timestamps
        end
      end
  
      def self.down
        drop_table :translations
      end
    end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Is this the best way to proceed?</strong></p>
  
  <p>On one hand all the translations will be nicely stored in one table.  On the other hand, every time a user queries the database for I18n content.  The app will query the original table for the key, and then query the translations table as well.  Another concern is that the translation table will be massive and have a huge amount of rows since it will be storing all the translations for the app (everything from section title [a few words] to entire pages of text.</p>
  
  <p>Any information is appreciated.  Thanks</p>