mysql multi group query with count - php

Question

I have this query
SELECT
products_list.id_cat_unique,
products_categories_list.*,
COUNT(products_list.id_cat_unique) as counter
FROM products_categories_ids
LEFT JOIN products_list
ON products_categories_ids.id_cat_unique = products_list.id_cat_unique
LEFT JOIN products_categories_list
ON products_categories_list.id_cat_unique = products_categories_ids.id_cat_unique
GROUP BY products_categories_list.name_cat
ORDER BY products_categories_list.name_cat ASC
This is complicated to explain without having the tables on your screen but I'll try
what I want is count all the rows from products_list that can be associated with max two rows per id_cat_unique (contained in products_categories_list) that are English or Italian. This two items each could have infinite id_products in products_list of course.
I want the result to be grouped by products_categories_list.name_cat and by the language.
What I get with this query is categories grouped by name/unique id which is correct, the problem is that the counter value for both English and Italian turns out as the sum of all the products associated with one id_cat_unique regardless of the language. So if I have 12 rows from one category in English and 3 for the same category in Spanish I get 15 as counter for both the languages.
EDIT ADDING TABLES STRUCTURES
products_list
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id_product | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| id_product_unique | int(5) | NO | | NULL | |
| lang | varchar(2) | NO | | NULL | |
| name_product | varchar(200) | NO | | NULL | |
| desc_product | text | NO | | NULL | |
| id_cat_unique | int(2) | NO | | NULL | |
| status | int(1) | NO | | NULL | |
+-------------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
12 rows in set (0.00 sec)
products_categories_ids
+---------------+--------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+---------------+--------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id_cat_unique | int(5) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
+---------------+--------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
products_categories_list
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id_cat | int(5) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| id_cat_unique | int(2) | NO | | NULL | |
| lang | varchar(2) | NO | | NULL | |
| name_cat | varchar(500) | NO | | NULL | |
| date_created | int(11) | NO | | NULL | |
| date_modified | int(11) | NO | | NULL | |
+---------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
6 rows in set (0.01 sec)
result from query
| id_cat_unique | id_cat | id_cat_unique | lang | name_cat | date_created | date_modified | counter |
+---------------+--------+---------------+------+--------------------------------+--------------+---------------+---------+
| 1 | 18 | 1 | it | Carne di suino | 1308267538 | 1308267538 | 6 |
| 14 | 21 | 14 | it | Guanciali | 1308777322 | 1308777322 | 2 |
| 3 | 20 | 3 | it | Pollo a pezzi | 1308267892 | 1308267892 | 2 |
| 1 | 22 | 1 | en | Pork meat | 1308267538 | 1312383232 | 6 |
| 14 | 23 | 14 | en | Sheeps | 1308777322 | 1312383220 | 2 |
| 2 | 19 | 2 | it | That's a "test" | 1308267538 | 1308267538 | 7 |
+---------------+--------+---------------+------+--------------------------------+--------------+---------------+---------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)
"Pork meat" and "Carne di Suino" have respectively 1 and 5 products (from the same category but different language, i wanna group the counting by language too) instead it shows 6 for both
NEW question
I'd like to use this query for many purposes without using different things, so accordingly if I want to retrieve the categories with ONE language I'd add one where clause
select pcl.*,
(select count(*) from products_list pl
where pcl.id_cat_unique = pl.id_cat_unique
and pcl.lang = pl.lang) as counter
from products_categories_list pcl
where products_list.lang = 'en' <- added
ORDER BY pcl.name_cat ASC
I get Unknown column 'products_list.lang' in 'where clause'. Why?

Answer 1

I THINK this will work, if not, it's going to be close, let me know what you get, and I can modify it. I've modified the query around. Would this work?
select pcl.*,
(select count(*) from products_list pl
where pcl.id_cat_unique = pl.id_cat_unique
and pcl.lang = pl.lang) as counter
from products_categories_list pcl
ORDER BY pcl.name_cat ASC
The PCL and PL are just aliases for the tables, so I didn't have to always write out products_categories_list and products_list. You specify the alias in the from part of the statement, so from products_list pl allows you to refer to products_list as pl in the rest of the query.
The idea behind this is that you have a unique row for each products_categories_list and you want a count of a secondary table. This could have been done by group by or by a sub query. I put the correlated subquery in to count the number of rows in products_list that matched the products_categories_list and language, since you are getting all the columns out of the products_categories_list. The correlated subquery allows you to get a single value (count(*)) from a nested query.

Answer 2

Probably this: add DISTINCT
COUNT(DISTINCT products_list.id_cat_unique) as counter
This will ignore duplicate, so the 12+3 via the JOIN becomes 1+1