Colossal Language Problem

Hello,

I am about to embark on a huge project using WordPress and need some advice about multiple languages.

I am creating a blog that will allow anyone to register and create a post.

I want to apply a theme to the front-end and to the administration.

I also want to make the blog administration available in multiple (but common) languages. So all the pages in wp-admin are going to be in the users’ own langauge.

The plan is to have a French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English version.

Am I better to create separate instances for each language OR will I be able to dynamically change the langauge on the pages, depending on some locale parameter.

I never need to display different languages on the front end at the same time. That is to say, French blog posts will always be displayed seperately from Chinese blog posts.

However, the different languages will all have the same WordPress theme. They are essentially the same blog but in different languages.

I think I want to install seperate instances, but I thought I would ask the forum. I’m going to have to integrate a lot of plugins, and if they are seperate, it means I’ll have to activate the same plugin 7 or 8 times (once for each language). If I change the WordPress theme, it’s going to mean changing 7 or 8 files (one for each language).

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Jeff