Breakdown of Я не иду в театр, а иду в музей.
не
not
а
and (contrastive)
я
I
театр
theater
музей
museum
в
in / to (direction)
идти
to go (on foot) / to proceed, go (of a process)
Questions & Answers about Я не иду в театр, а иду в музей.
Why use иду here instead of еду?
иду comes from the verb идти, which specifically means to go on foot. You use it when you are walking. If you were taking transport (like a bus or the subway) to the museum, you would use еду (from ехать).
Why is the word а used for "but" instead of но?
In Russian, а is used to show a direct contrast, especially in "not X, but Y" situations. Since you are correcting the destination (not the theater, but the museum), а is the perfect fit. You use но when introducing an unexpected complication (like "I am going to the museum, but it is closed").
We are going "to" a place, so shouldn't театр and музей change their endings?
They actually are in a different case here! We use the Accusative case for a destination after the preposition в (to/into). However, because театр and музей are masculine and inanimate (not alive), their Accusative forms look exactly the same as their basic dictionary forms.
Since Russian only has one present tense, how do we know иду means "I am walking" and not "I walk (every day)"?
идти is a unidirectional verb of motion, meaning it describes a single trip in one direction happening right now. Because of this, it naturally translates to the English "am walking" or "am going". If you wanted to say "I walk to the museum every day", you would use a different verb altogether (ходить).
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