日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 6

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.

Japanese - Ask questions thread
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1174719097/1-40

日語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread2 質問
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1302350850/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 5
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1330050873/1-40

Should I make an active effort to not think any English at all when reading Japanese, or will it come naturally? For example, I see 誕生日, and I end up looking at the first character, then the second, etc, trying to link their meanings together, from which I get birthday, and then I know the reading is たんじょうび from prior study. Is this bad, or natural? If I shouldn't be doing it this way, how else do I do it?