how do I associate one model twice to another

Question

Hi im making a small site to help me and friends learn languages. Typical use:

Adam is english but is learning japanese. Adam can practice his japanese by writing and

Answer 1

Yeah, you're right. The association between User and Language is twofold. It's quite easy to model this situation using Rails:

class Language < AR::Base
  has_many :native_speakers, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "native_language_id"
  has_many :second_language_speakers, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "second_language_id"
  has_many :articles
end

class User < AR::Base
  # we expect the users table to have native_language_id and second_language_id columns
  belongs_to :native_language, :class_name => "Language"
  belongs_to :second_language, :class_name => "Language"
  has_many :second_language_articles, :through => :second_language, :source => :articles
  has_many :native_language_articles, :through => :native_language, :source => :articles
end

class Article < AR::Base
  belongs_to :language
end

Something like that should work.