Peter, I couldnt find the instructions to make i18n work in any of the places you said, could you point out the exact place, or perhaps point me to another way to get the translation package to work?
Could you please be a bit more specific about what you did and what you couldn't do? Did you follow the instructions in the end of this page: http://translate.dotlrn.collaboraid.net/ ?
If so, how far did you get without problems? Are you working on translation server? Or are you talking about totally different thigs?