the left table is the table to the left of the JOIN key word. the right table is the table to the right of the JOIN keyword
In this example:
SELECT *
FROM department LEFT OUTER JOIN employee
ON employee.DepartmentID = department.DepartmentID
the left table is department
the right table is employee.
look at it as:
SELECT *
FROM leftTable LEFT OUTER JOIN rightTable
I think perhaps a tool like Navicat would help you tremendously:
mysql_overview.html
navicat can be used to automatically generate complex join queries for you using a GUI.
