Multilingual Site Suggestions

FYI, I did read this article:http://codex.ww.wp.xz.cn/Multilingual_WordPress , but thought I’d state my “idea” a bit and listen for advice.

I’ll be creating a dual-language installation which basically will contain news articles.
It would be nice if on the admin side the person doing the articles be able to edit both at the same time, not having 2 separate wordpress admin panels open.

Though on the front end, the two languages will be separate they will be linked (at this stage just a box stating something like “this article are also available in Japanese with 32 comments). So I don’t want to make the two sides too “loosely coupled” if that make sense.

I’ll be experimenting with some plugins now, but are open to suggestions and hope to share my experience as well.