meaning of 먼저
hello everyone! recently I had some difficulties trying to translate a dialogue in korean. I could not fully understand the meaning of the word 먼저 in this sentence: 먼저 1번 버스를 타세요. could anyone help?:)

Question

Answer

Hello. 
Understanding the subtleties of a language I think is the most difficult part of learning a new language,
and your question has to do with subtleties as well :)

So a direct translation of that sentence would mean, 'first, take bus #1.' This, however, implies that you would have to take another bus, etc to get to your destination. Think of 먼저 1번 버스를 타세요 as an incomplete sentence. To complete the sentence, it would go something like, 먼저 1번 버스를 타시고 00에서 2번 버스로 갈아타세요,' meaning, 'first take bus #1, get off at 00 and then take bus#2.'

Hope this helped :)

Answer

먼저 means "first"

먼저 1번 버스를 타세요
First, take the bus no. 1.