Tips for a new Japanese learner

I’m fairly new to Japanese I’ve already got hiragana fully memorised and only a little katakana but I was wondering when I learn basic sentences like greetings for example should I try to remember that Japanese sentence as what I would say in English like sumimasen** **should I translate that in my head as ‘excuse me’ in English or should I think differently it’s hard to explain this is all very confusing.