This might sound weird but… when I’m watching Anime or Japanese TV shows I can’t help but translate every single sentence inside my head, but when I’m talking with my friends as practice, I can pretty much get the gist of the conversation without really trying to translate every single sentence. When I hear my friends speaking, I can really just… get it, to some extent. But with anime and any other type of shows, I just can’t stop translating inside my head, and my brain feels like jelly after. I don’t really know how to explain it and why/how this happens.
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Maybe it’s because when you’re talking to friends, you’re speaking in Japanese so you’re also basically thinking in Japanese. When you’re alone, you’re probably thinking in English, right? So it makes sense that you have to put their words into English to think about them.
IDK though this is just a guess
Language takes a special priority in our minds when used for communication. The translating you’re doing while watching something is you making a conscious effort to analyze and understand what you’re hearing because you’re a passive listener. While in conversation you skip that extra step because you’re understanding the gist without breaking it down for analysis.
What are the topics of conversation when you talk with your friends? Are they (at least to some extent) making an effort to speak at your level?
My assumption would be that any conversation you’re having in real life is naturally going to be sort of tailored to the sort of topics and level of conversation that you’re capable of. On the other hand, anime and Japanese TV shows are just going to be bombarding you with full-on Japanese intended for native speakers, complete with slang, technical jargon, etc. etc.
As more and more of what you’re hearing is going over your head or too difficult for you to keep up with, the easier it is for your brain to say “I give up!” and switch back into “English mode” (and thereby exhaust yourself in the process).
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there’s no real magic fix — the only solution is time and practice. As your listening comprehension and overall Japanese ability improves, the more you’ll be able to understand (even more difficult) media meant for native Japanese speakers.
In the meantime, you could try to find easier listening material that you can follow along with at the same speed and level as the conversations you’re having with your friend. I suspect these wouldn’t fatigue or frustrate you in the same way.
I know exactly how you feel, as I do the same thing. It does indicate you’re actively listening to the show and trying to analyse it instead of just letting it wash over you or focusing on the subtitles alone, which is good. As mentioned by other people, there’s no magic fix for it other than time and practice. There are two different tacks you could take:
First, you can consciously try *not* to analyse everything. [This video](https://youtu.be/i8oDLO7GPsk) was very interesting to me, but basically, always trying to translate can root you in your own native language, which quickly becomes a handicap. Instead, just trying to figure things out from context and listening to the language instead of translating everything can be fine.
If you’re actively trying to analyse the show, however, one useful tactic is consciously trying to figure out/contextualise/interpret things in Japanese. It’s hard to do and sounds a bit like I’m just saying “just think in Japanese” but it can be done and it’s quite useful (if more tiring). Try to explain to someone (in Japanese) what’s going on or what they just said or what the new word you learned is. For example, if someone describes the new guy as a サラリーマン, and you realise that means “office worker”, instead of thinking “oh, office worker, got it”, intentionally say to yourself 「あ、オフィスに働く人」。Building up the association between Japanese internally (i.e. サラリーマン isn’t connected to “office worker” but to オフィスに働く) will allow you to start “staying” in Japanese instead of jumping from Japanese to English (or whatever language) and back. It’s a lot more tiring at first, but it’ll pay off significantly, and it’ll really help both with remembering words and with generative speech. Heck, it’ll even indicate to you holes in your Japanese vocabulary or grammar when you want to express something that you think you know but realise you don’t know how.