I’m a beginner at Japanese but I’m already a little ways into grammar (I started before learning kanji, I know it’s not the best idea but I didn’t know at the time). When I read Japanese (easy sentences) I read the whole thing then I interpret what that means as opposed to when I read each word at a time in English. I just want to make sure if it is okay to read it this way before I develop a habit
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I’m far from being in a position to give advice, but I think you shouldn’t.
I don’t know what your goals are with japanese, and maybe you don’t care about speaking/listening, but maybe one day you will, and think of it this way: you can’t stop and rewind time to get individual pieces of info 
It would be weird forgetting that the recipient of a birthday present is you, when it’s clearly not your birthday, and that you just mixed it up with the person asking about you. (and taking time to process the info)
I don’t know how people that are actually knowledgable read japanese, but I’d say read in japanese and try to visualise and remember bits of info, but not to translate, at least if you can 100% understand the thing you’re reading you probably don’t need to translate かわいい to get what I’m saying, you understood immediatly what it meant (provided you ever watched/read anime stuff, and it’s just a word, not a full sentence that’s 3km long lol) you can still do it as a mean of verifying that you didn’t overlook something
I don’t know where I’m going with this, so I’ll stop here, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of input !
and maybe people telling me how wrong I am
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This is not a bad thing. You should be doing as much grammar as you can. Kanji can help, but without grammar, you are stranded. I made the mistake of my doing enough grammar on my way through wanikani.
As for reading, it sounds like your doing fine. Since you’re just beginning, that’s just what will happen. You are probably in a non-native environment, so your natural thought is to think of everything in English. This is why people say that immersion is the best way to learn a language. You are forced to start using and thinking in these words in order to survive.
Keep it up and don’t get discouraged. You can do it.
頑張って！
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Thanks for the response, I see what you’re saying and I’ll try to do that to the best of my abilities, but as I am only beginning it may be hard for now, I’ll just have to work my way there
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Thanks! That’s reassuring that it is probably only because I’m beginning. I’m planning to go on a brief vacation over to japan sometime in the next year or so, so I’ll have to see how my learning plays out in actual practice
Well it’s definitely not correct, but at the same time you’re a beginner so I wouldn’t sweat it honestly. I think I ran into a similar problem and it sorta straightened itself out.
The problem, I believe, comes primarily from your brain just not thinking in Japanese. If you’re trying to work it out in English as you go, you’ll have a bad time. This causes you to do it all together after you’ve read through it. Once the patterns of the language and meaning of the words become familiar, you should have an easier time.
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