Language Switcher button issue ?

Hello,
I am very new to Drupal and CMS. After receiving some help from the 'Before you Start' forum I have translation somewhat working on my test site.

I know have the Language Switcher English/french button on the right side. I also have the English or French button on the bottom of my main page. The issue is this. If I am in the Englsih main page and click on french at the botto of the screen ... the page will translate to french. If I then select english at the bottom of the page it will change to the english page. Which is great.

but the issue is this.

When I first go to my test site it defaults to english, which is ok for now BUT if I use the Language Switcher button on the RIGHT hand side of the screen and click french the main page does not change to french. But if I use the small french button on the bottom of the main page it changes to french.

It should be noted in the IE address bar when I select french in the side language switcher bar the url changes to
www.mysite.com/drupal6/fr but the mainpage is still english but if I click the french button at the bottom of the mainpage the url changes to www.mysite.com/drupal6/fr/node/5 and the main page is now french

How can I get the Langauge switcher on the right on side of the screen working ?

I look under administer / site configuation and my default frontpage is www.mysite.com/drupal6/en/node/1 which is english. While in adminster / site configuartion if I click the side language switcer to french the default fronatpage changes to www.mysite.com/drupal6/fr/node/1 Could the problem be that my french page is /node/5 and not /node/1 ?
If so how do I fix this ?

Thank you very much
Neil