Getting the top count of records from a table for each month and user I have a table where translations are stored along with the user_id and when the translation was added.
I want to create a query that shows the 'Translator of the month' (the person who did the most translations in that month).

I have a query to get the top translator of all translations:

SELECT user_id, COUNT(user_id) 
FROM gp_translations
WHERE (STATUS='current' OR STATUS='old')
GROUP BY user_id
ORDER BY COUNT(user_id) 


and I have a query that shows the year/month:

SELECT distinct CONCAT(YEAR(`date_added`),'/', MONTH(`date_added`)) AS `Year/Month` 
FROM `gp_translations` t1
GROUP BY YEAR(`date_added`), MONTH(`date_added`)
ORDER BY `date_added` DESC


but when combining both I fail miserably. The query runs endlessly:

SELECT distinct CONCAT(YEAR(`date_added`),'/', MONTH(`date_added`)) AS `Year/Month`, (
SELECT distinct user_id
FROM gp_translations t2
WHERE (STATUS='current' OR STATUS='old') AND     YEAR(t2.date_added)=YEAR(t1.date_added)
AND MONTH(t2.date_added)=MONTH(t1.date_added)
GROUP BY user_id
ORDER BY COUNT(user_id) DESC
LIMIT 1)
FROM `gp_translations` t1
GROUP BY YEAR(`date_added`), MONTH(`date_added`)
ORDER BY `date_added` DESC


The table gp_translations has the following structure:

 CREATE TABLE `gp_translations` (
`id` INT(10) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`original_id` INT(10) NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`translation_set_id` INT(10) NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`translation_0` TEXT NOT NULL,
`translation_1` TEXT NULL,
`translation_2` TEXT NULL,
`translation_3` TEXT NULL,
`translation_4` TEXT NULL,
`translation_5` TEXT NULL,
`user_id` INT(10) NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`status` VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'waiting',
`date_added` DATETIME NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`date_modified` DATETIME NULL DEFAULT NULL,
`warnings` TEXT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
INDEX `original_id` (`original_id`),
INDEX `user_id` (`user_id`),
INDEX `translation_set_id` (`translation_set_id`),
INDEX `translation_set_id_status` (`translation_set_id`, `status`),
INDEX `date_added` (`date_added`),
INDEX `warnings` (`warnings`(1))
)
COLLATE='utf8_general_ci'
ENGINE=MyISAM
AUTO_INCREMENT=342587;


I know I am doing something seriously wrong here. But I can't find the way to properly merge both with decent speed. Any help is appreciated. MySQL version is 5.5.34
Due to lack of windows functions and cte, mysql version is quite verbose, but I hope it will give you desired results in reasonable time (I know it's not fast at all):

SELECT a.*, c.*
FROM 
(
   SELECT yr,mn, MAX(translations_per_month) as max_user_translations
   FROM
   (
     SELECT  YEAR(`date_added`) as yr, MONTH(`date_added`) as mn, user_id, 
     COUNT(1) as translations_per_month
     FROM `gp_translations` t1
     INNER JOIN gp_users u ON 
      (u.id = t1.user_id AND u.STATUS='current' OR u.STATUS='old')
     GROUP BY  YEAR(`date_added`), MONTH(`date_added`),user_id
    )b
    GROUP BY yr,mn
)a
INNER JOIN 
(
   SELECT  YEAR(`date_added`) as yr, MONTH(`date_added`) as mn, user_id, display_name,
   COUNT(1) as translations_per_month
   FROM `gp_translations` t1
   INNER JOIN gp_users u ON (u.id = t1.user_id AND u.STATUS='current' OR u.STATUS='old')
   GROUP BY YEAR(`date_added`), MONTH(`date_added`),user_id, display_name
)c ON  (c.yr = a.yr and c.mn = a.mn and c.translations_per_month = a.max_user_translations)


Also, I made a guess that status column is in gb_users table ; if not, the query needs to be modified a bit.