Any experience with multi-language PHP sites?

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone has any experience with building large scale multi-language websites with PHP/MySQL? The plan is to have the core site created in English and then translators can login to create the various language versions (we'll have 6 languages to start with including Japanese). Content will be pure text (no HTML), stored in a MySQL 4.1 database with appropriate caching for display. I'm interested in knowing of any problems I should be looking out for while designing this - what happens to Japanese characters for example when stored in a MySQL text field? Any issues re: displaying them again once extracted? Or on validating foreign data input on web forms? Best regards, Richard Davey -- http://www.launchcode.co.uk - PHP Development Services "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." - Isaac Asimov