Yeah. You're completely right with this point, that you should translate from your language to English.
The explanation is when you do this way - you're getting used to it and after sometime you'll get this behavior of translating which will stop you in speaking. There is no time for translation while speaking.
Therefore, I think it would be good idea to use English to English dictionary such as Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary and so on.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
Another good idea when you translate from English to your language is to guess meaning of the world which you don't know. Later you can check your guess in dictionary.
Sorry I've just got a bit carried away. So your problem about translating from YOUR language TO English.
I've got one more tip. If you're beginner in English or your vocabulary isn't so big you can look for pictures in Google.
For example: I don't what does word dog means. What I would do in this case is - I would type this word in Google search and switch to the picture mode. This way I would know meaning of the word without knowing translation in my language.
Additionally, I look for explanation of word in videos on Youtube.