I have a table

CREATE TABLE LANGUAGE_TRANSLATIONS (
ACCOUNT_ITEM_ID VARCHAR2 (40) NOT NULL,
COUNTRY_CODE VARCHAR2 (20) NOT NULL,
TRANSLATION VARCHAR2 (1000),
CONSTRAINT PK_LANGUAGE_TRANSLATIONS
PRIMARY KEY ( ACCOUNT_ITEM_ID, COUNTRY_CODE ) );

Then I create a foreig key with these 2 columns account_item_id and country_code separately,
like

alter table language_translations
add constraint fk_lt_c
foreign key (country_code) references countries(country_code)
/

alter table language_translations
add constraint fk_lt_ai
foreign key (account_item_id) references account_items(account_item_id)
/

Is this the right way ? Should the foriegn key also be composite ? But the Countries table doe not contain account_item_id column and vice versa.

Please pour in your opinions. There seems to be lots of locks occuring with this table . What do I do when a table is locked ?

And can you please tell me how to come out of a deadlock and how to prevent it. The last time it happened, I had to ask everyone to log out and restarted the db.

thanks a lot

pst