What does L1 mean in the following sentences:

"Nel primo anno lo studente sceglie tre lingue di studio, di cui almeno una dell'Unione Europea. Lo studente straniero non puo' scegliere comme lingua di studio la propria L1."

I'm trying to figure out if it means I can't chose my own first language of study as it's automatically italian, or if I can't do English as my main language of study (but can as a minor language), or if I can't do English at all. Seems silly to go to Italy and get a degree in translation but not be able to translate English!

It means that you can't choose your mother tongue as one of the languages. This strikes me as fair. You know it already. It doesn't imply that you can't work as a translator in that language.

It's fair in the sense that I already speak English, but this is a translation course. Why would I spend 3 years translating Italian-French, Italian-Russian, and Italian-German and never put my hands on a document to translate Italian-English? And I don't even speak Russian or German! What's frustrating is after a while in Italy I'll be 4lingual: English, French, Japanese, Italian. And yet I'd have to learn 2 more languages for school translation!

I wonder if there are any American univerity campuses over there where you could study translation Italian/English.... ?

L1 is your first language, or mother-tongue, L2 your second language, then L3 and so on.

I think it means you cannot use english as a studying language but you can use italian therefore you could learn the whole translating italian/english and viceversa thing... or maybe i am being optimistic? Usually what seems a road with a dead end is mostly a misunderstanding as italian books are badly written in those burocratic parts. I once struggled to understand my uni book too!