For me, I think there was only a very brief window where I translated... And to be honest, I can't actually remember ever doing it. (Although I am sure it happened at some point.)
My advice is to do your best to learn Japanese without it being "translated" to begin with. Learn it from context, learn it from observance, learn it *in* Japanese... Just don't learn it as "blah blah" means "blah blah blah" in English. Instead of the word being linked in your mind to the actual meaning, it will be linked to what you have been told is it's meaning - another word, instead of the actual thing.
A vaguely similar example would be two words with pretty much the same meaning. When you hear "dog", the object that it should be linked to is, well, a dog. When you hear "canine", the link should also be going to the same thing - a dog. Not to "dog" which then goes to the real thing.
It is something really difficult for me to explain, but I learned Japanese almost entirely from exposure and learning *in* Japanese (for example, looking things up in Japanese dictionaries, asking for clarification in Japanese, etc). So I seem to have two "pools" of language that only slightly overlap. There are things that I know and understand in Japanese, and things that I know and understand in English. They are mostly the same things, but there is no internal connection between them. There are strange moments of realization that such-and-such, that I am familiar with in one language, is the familiar something-or-other in the other language. The words aren't linked, so sometimes it feels strange to realize that A=B, even when I have known both words all along.
The ability to keep the languages separate is very important, in my opinion. I don't think it is a matter of
thinking in one or the other. I don't "think" in Japanese any more than I "think" in English while speaking it. I only consciously think about what I am going to say before saying it in either language when I am trying to come up with a good way to word something difficult or sensitive. I don't think most people normally think about what they are saying or hearing, really.
Instead of aiming for thinking in one or the other, I say aim for not thinking in either. Try to just accept the information conveyed by the words.
I think this is why I seem to be quite good at translation. I seem to store information independent of the language I encountered it in. It makes it easy to regurgitate it in either language later on.
After spending the day at a bilingual friend's house, changing languages depending on whether others in our vicinity understood or not (my husband is monolingual as is my friend's mother-in-law, when they were talking with us we spoke in Japanese. When it was just the two of us we spoke in English.), I can remember all that we talked about but I can't recall which parts were in which language.
A very poor answer to your question, I imagine. I am up too late and rambling a bit.