Is this the wrong way to learn a Language?

"is" is not "ich", it is "ist".
"ich" means "I".

As this is quite a simple sentence, it's quite easy to translate it right, independent of the word order of the language.

But beware, a lot of times you can't just translate it word by word, and also exchange one language's word with the other language's word in the same place.


Try this for example:

Am nachmittag kam ein großes Paket, das sich schon am vormittag durch einen Anruf ankündigte.

or

The seven dwarfs forced Snow White every day, to cook them her excellent soup, just so they would get a belly, even giants would be envious of.

 

you would want to try to learn it conceptually rather than word for word - as many in many languages, a single word can mean an entire phrase in English.

 

What he said.

However, if you keep at it and learn a language for several years eventually you'll be able to look at even complicated sentences and get at least the general meaning without consciously translating it (and sometimes without even knowing the English translation)