I don’t read German, or French very well for that matter, so going to the sources is a bit of a linguistic barrier to my own self-directed learning, but that’s no excuse not to learn. I also have found both Lacan and Hegel to be a rich source of food for thought, so I appreciate others who have been steeped in their ideas, as you have, so that their knowledge graph can adjoin my own, at least in small ways.
replyI appreciate the mention of Bruce Fink, as his name is new to me. Any works of his or others you might recommend to me would be duly noted.
I'm not fluent in French or German either, only enough for light reading in both, and certainly not enough for anything complex/dense. For Lacan, Hegel, and other continental thinkers, I read the same translations that most English-speaking readers do. Am I missing something of these text's core essence? Probably. But, it's also not my job and I need that linguistic brain space for programming languages, so I'm okay with getting 90% of it.
replyHere was my early Lacan workflow: Lots of Freud essays (you need to know Freud's major ideas cold), The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan by McGowan, The Lacanian Subject by Fink, Seminar VII, Seminar XI.
I've read a lot of other stuff since then, but this path into Lacan worked for me. By the time you've read these, you'll know where to go next on your own. You'll also know pretty early in it whether Lacan is for you. Also, if you don't like Freud (and I don't mean disagree with him, but dislike the overall approach), you can safely stop there.